Frozen
by Engineer Jess
Summary: After #3, the dark side is taking Buzz Lightyear completely into its control. There is a herb that could heal him, growing on a mythical winter planet. But what if Buzz is only willing to follow the path that Zurg once put in front of him...?
1. The legend

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar

Choi Zarah G'Deneb © Engineer Jess

Mariañ Haydée © Empress Lightyear

**Episode 4:**

**Frozen**

1. The Legend

  
  


_"...Once upon a time there was a lush, tropic planet at the edges of Theta Quadrant.__ It was full of vividness, a Xanadu of jungles and emerald green valleys. A race of peaceful aliens enjoyed their lives in this mystic nature paradise. They were healthy, in harmony with the vegetation and animals. It was told that a key to their long and sorrowless life was a certain herb growing in the forests of the particular planet. It would let one's mind free from depression and dark thoughts, healing one's body by bringing him new force of vivacity. No outsiders were allowed to eat this plant; it was only in the use of the natives. It was not cultivated; it grew wild in the boscages, in symbiosis with a rare mushroom._

_ The centuries went on. Generations were born, generations died, but overall the planet kept on blooming with its complacent population. However, one day, an unexpected doom from the skies was there to destroy it all. Without any detection, without any forecast a large meteorite crashed down from space and raised a mighty ash cloud above the surface. No sun got in to cheer up the misery of the devastation. Little by little the climate changed. A cold breeze would blow instead of the gentle, warm wind. The mild summer showers turned to blizzards, breathing snow and ice to cover the greenness. Gradually the planet was a cold tomb, surrounded by an eternal ice age. The habitants who had enough technology, moved away, leaving the old home to die. No one could survive long enough in such a place where nothing grew, nothing was lively._

_ ...and so was also destroyed the herb of longevity. Nevertheless, the legends will live on, telling that there is furthermore a secret, forbidden valley on the planet, where still the summer blossoms. There somewhere, under the trees, grows _tha-grydda_, the well of soundness. But who is there to find it, if it even exists..."_

_----------_

"That was a sad story. Sounds pretty much the same what happened to Xaneda, only in a bit opposite way..."

"Yeah... and if that veggie would really be juttin' somewhere there, it maybe would bring a certain fella away from darkness..."

 Two sighs filled a half-lit room. A cosy and warming fire crackled there in a huge fireplace. At it, on soft pillows, were sitting Warp and Zarah Darkmatter, cuddled up tight to each other. She leaned to his side, searching for a safe place under his thick arm. Giving a glance to her side, he smoothed her hair and took her more into his embrace.

 It was a freezing day under the surface of Xaneda. All the households in Xatagah community were heated up to the maximum temperatures. Despite of the ultra-modern heater devices, the Darkmatters had one room for a fireplace -ancient but homey. It was Warp's habit to sit in front of it with his lady and tell her fairy tales, just like now. Although, this time it was a much more severe situation.

 The blue alien switched off the little holo-book he had been reading. Silence was the dweller of the chamber; neither of the mates were able to speak about their subject, very soon. While the yellow flames happily danced in front of him, Warp collected his thoughts and rememberized the occurrences from beyond some months.

 All was supposed to be well after the sudden destruction of the Zurgean Empire. The major threat of the Galactic Alliance was wiped away like a random dust particle. Currently the solar systems of the fallen reign were going through a re-habitation program. All the remains of the despotism would be destroyed, while the supremacy of the Alliance would bring there a new control.

 What had become of Emperor Zurg, was that he was living under a new -or strictly saying an old- identity. His passport told to every public authority the name Zoxedaszeĉ Zora Lightyear. He lodged on Capital Planet, near the hospital where he had been some weeks. The body of him had been badly injured after the particular explosion accident. His right lung had burst, in addition of that he had permanently lost a few of his own ribs. But with biotic implants replacing the handicapped organs, Zurg was able to come along as well as before the fatal day.

 Darkmatter recalled that it had been a sheer chaos when the indolent Emperor had been transported to Star Command HQ, after the battle on Planet Z. Commander Nebula was near to lose his mind when he heard all the news, about the identities, resurrected persons and the doom of one dynasty. He could not draw his regard away from the face of Zurg. When the almost dying ex-villain was shifted to the LGM operating room, he had followed him even there, staring in turn at the elder Lightyear and his son. Buzz was then directed to get instant treatment, too, because of being in a forceful shock. It had taken an era for the Commander to accept the truth of the Lightyear family.

...and so bright had the prospects been, when the memorable meeting had been held. Where Zurg had begged for apologies, the Darkmatters timidly discussing about the new freedom, Mira Nova convincing the ex-Emperor that the new hope was there, behind one door...

 Maybe Zurg had seen the ray of noveau light, but what was the situation of his son, it was merely the opposite. Now, after such a long time, it was evident, that the dark side had begun to swallow him. After once letting it into him, it had not lightened its hold, but insidiously crept further and further into his thoughts. The depression that had taken over the captain already on Planet Z, had not given in. Buzz had promised to start his work as a ranger, again, but that seemed to be only a castle in Spain, nowadays. The Universe Protection would never accept such a worker, not even as a rookie.

 Everyone of the broken-up Team Lightyear exhaled deep when seeing their once so viril and brave captain in this condition. The new Buzz Lightyear was something completely unforeseen. Introvert, stern, inflexible, not willing to spend time or discuss with his usual friends. And worse it went, when the clock hands galloped forwards.  He wanted to be alone, closing the windows in front of everyone's noses. Alone, descend more into the darkness. The usual medications had no effect on him, the grimness with the black thoughts stayed. Oh the promises, oh the hopes...

"So... it was that Izzard who brought this concern up..." Warp finally opened his mouth. She gave a worried leer back, putting then her arms tight around his waist.

"Why won't the world just settle down as it should have been? Now I'm afraid of the both Lightyears", she answered fearfully.

Warp stroked her shoulders in addition of his soothing answer. "I guess the state of affairs is a bit different with our Incognito Caesar. He seems to have gone through it pretty well since there indicates to be no maliciousness much left in him, any more. He genuinely regrets his past. So maybe ya should try to accept him the way he is, now, babe."

"I've tried! But I'm so scared of him! Every time I meet those piercing brown eyes of him, what do I remember? The purple chamber, the hideous grin of his helmet mouth, the high current slashing my organs all over... I'm back to that torture chair every time he's present!" she inhaled teary, trying once again to search for an asylum in Warp's arms.

"There, there, Za li'l..." he whispered. "That's gone. You're safe here. No one wants to hurt you. It's been extremely difficult for me to get used to his renewed personality, too, but little by little the fears have mildened."

"I try, Darkie, I try my best, ya know that", she gave a coy sniffle.

"Wonder still why the change was that easy for him. Maybe it was solely because he got the point that he's not the sovereign overbeing of the whole universe, but can die like an ant squashed under a shoe..." Warp pondered, "...and that other experience..."

"You mean the case of Mariañ Haydée?"

"Exactly."

"Well she literally saved his life with that surgery she did. Maybe it's explainable that Zurg got smitten with her, but that's more peculiar that she immediately responded to his feelings..." Zarah kept her regard for a while directed to the shadows that waved in the corners. "Only that I astonish a bit her taste... she and her target of admiration have over 25 years of age difference... I mean, she's younger than me!"

He gave a guffaw, "Yeah and I though that our 5 years were much!"

"At least she's not startled by him. What I lastly heard, was that they're engaged, now."

The male Darkmatter was not to believe his ears, only shook his head in extreme amusement. "Rotten quasars... that's new for me... but I guess we should shift back to the main topic. We're here rumouring about other one's love affairs like some ol' scandalmongers..."

Zarah turned very grave. "Let's face it. What are the odds that some kind of a legend like this would be trustworthy?"

"As much as the fairy tales concerning this li'l nice hide nook, Xaneda", he grinned.

"And it was Zurg who sent you that information disk, what ya were just reading?" she asked.

"As crazy as it sounds. Evil Emperor Zurg willing to find a way to get his bully-boy son to step among the nice people again..." Sudden sadness because of the association darkened his face. "And I thought I an' that Lightwave were chums, again... it seems to me that he has entered pretty deep the wrong tunnels. Not willing to talk to me, any more."

His wife took the little holo-computer into her hands instead and clicked the info disk into it. With a couple of button presses, she had opened a 3D-map of the Theta Quadrant in front of her.

"At least the so-called winter planet exists, if that brings any hope to the reliability of the legends", she noted. "Isgurda, the land of everlasting coldness. The fifth planet of Iskallth System."

"Za, the fake-dead daddy of you-know-who is serious with this stuff. He's gathering an expedition group for to get to that ice inferno. To find that outdoor cucumber... ermh, I mean that _tha-grydda_ or whatever gibberish it was. And... he wants _us_ to take part of that trip."

She raised her gaze to meet his open face. An evident bewilderment reflected from her big, green eyes. With somewhat a shaking voice she began, "G-go to a... an expedition trip w-with... _Zurg_? I... I don't know..."

"Guess am I very pleased to that idea?" Warp muttered back, "Chat up with that Mr. Phantom Menace... yet, he seems to be convinced that that silly grass is growing somewhere and it would be the right cure for his dear sonny... even says he has some scientific evidence of the existence of it. He has talked Commander Nebula dizzy for to give him equipment and resources to arrange a longer journey to Isgurda."

Choi breathed deep, forehead wrinkled. So, there would be a new adventure ahead, with not-so-pleasing company. However, there seemed to be no exit gate in the horizon to avoid this. It was planned that the Darkmatters would travel to Capital Planet after a couple to days, to find out, what the future would be. Buzz Lightyear's state went worse day by day, dimming gradually the light of those heroic deeds that had once been his crown. Therefore, something had to be done to it, before it would be too late.


	2. Preparing to the journey

2. Preparing to the Journey

  


A pair of sapphire blue, sharp eyes stared at two figures from under black, wrinkled eyebrows. Under the nose of its owner, was an angrily distorted mouth telling the fact that no nice words had been heard from the lips of it.

"Get away from here!" the chest-voice warned. The eyes flashed more and a fist rose up to the levels of them to shake a warning.

"But son..." a sigh answered to this gruesome bawl.

"I don't want you here! I want to be in my own peace!" the retort continued. The man who interjected it into the air, was dressed to completely black clothes. The doorway behind him opened into a house, which was quite peculiarly decorated. Black, violet, odd colours in the places where normally had been white shelvings and walls. This mortal was Buzz Lightyear, in his unfortunate new form.

The door of the house banged shut in front of the nasal bones of Zurg and Warp. The taller man exhaled deep for disappointment and sadness, the shorter one taking a severe expression on his greyish-blue face.

"What the marathoning quasar has gone to Buzz? Day by day it gets worse. Last time I was outside his hut he at least had the manners to say it a bit more politely than just pointing the sign of the nearest landfill to me!" Warp creaked his teeth.

"It is all my fault..." the elder person continued, "The dark side takes him more and more. I can see myself in his regard, when I was young, reckless and taking the steps towards the evilness. I know the symptoms. Better than anyone else in this galaxy."

The men took slow gaits towards the near parking lot where Warp's city speeder was put to rest. Pressing his temples, Zurg could do nothing but moan during the short promenade.

"And I have done all my best to try to free my mind from the temptations of the wrong side. I have attempted! I have attempted to find the goodness again! And that this has to happen to my son, the only son I have brought to this world! Why, why the life flagellates me the way it does, now..."

"...an' we only wan'ed to find out if he'd go to the museum with us. Craters, this gig is just for his sake!" Warp cursed under his breath.

The matter of fact was now, that the Darkmatters had arrived to Capital Planet a few hours earlier. An important meeting was arranged in the Capital Planet Museum, where scientists and a group of the possible future explorers would gather to negotiate about the forthcoming event -the possible travel to Isgurda. In addition, Zurg was the leading person of the whole operation. He felt himself being so responsible of his son's current state, that it was his onus to find a key to open the rusty lock of the circumstances.

 What the two ex-villains had wanted from the younger Lightyear, was, that he would at least go to see what was planned for his cure. But for everyone's bitter disillusionment, he was moreover irate to hear what had been laid out.

Starting the engines of the speeder, Darkmatter took the route towards the museum. His wife was there waiting for him, because of certain reasons she had not wanted to go to meet Buzz. In addition of her, there were Commander Nebula, a professor of linguistics and the galactic history -the old, familiar Mr. Colossus-Ga'losh- a couple of space rangers, and Mariañ Haydée.

 During the minor flight, Warp could not help himself pondering the state of his old friend.

"Did you, Space Khan, notice the inners of his house that were like a black hole swallowing the incoming light? Has Buzz gone completely insane?"

"I am afraid he has descended the gates of the dark side the way I once did. It can be read from his behaviour, surroundings, everything. When the darkness once takes the upper hand of you, it shall not let you go. It enforces you to walk its path." Zora declared with his bass tone.

"Yea, yea, I know that ol' mantra. Do ya think it was easy for me to fight against the wrong emotions? In addition of that ya... hmm... tried to kill me an' my wife..." the blue alien beside him was quite frustrated. "But what I merely meant with my topic, was that shouldn't someone start to watch after that looney? I mean he was in the hospital gettin' treatment for a while, but who's watching him now? No one knows with what plots his bucket is filled with!"

The person next to the driver felt his heart heavy as a millstone. Yes, he did have a heart. From under the covers of evilness was discovered the feelings of pity, care and love, one by one. The sentence of Warp could not have hurt him more, especially when understanding how difficult the forgiveness was. His new habitat consisted almost only of the persons that he had attempted to slaughter from time to time.

 Zurg lived under the special control of the Alliance. As long as he would indicate the reformed features that decorated him now, he would be treated as a normal citizen of Capital Planet. Nevertheless, if he would be caught his hands in crimes, it was the straight way to PC-7. For the moment he actually did not have any work to do for income, a social department paid him a certain kind of pension. No one had this far invented a job for him, so he just kept rooming on his own. Mostly he spent his hours at the Star Command HQ, trying to make friends with space rangers and occasionally helping the LGM with some scientific issues. What came to his outer appearance, he had adopted a youthful clothing style. Jeans, college shirts, large boots. He had let his thick hair grow, combing it similarly when he had been in his twenties. However, he could not get rid of his obsession to violet and izzard-decorations. Even at this instant onto his steel belt buckle was engraved the initial letter. 

And now... after over 25 years of living in isolation from his son, was he going to let him be the next booty of the dark side? Definitely not! And he would not let him do any senselessness, not during the possible expedition nor today.

"I do know the hazard... his gleaming eyes narrate that he wants to flee... to live among persons like he is now... and that he is truthfully ready to take that step. Until this day he has still stayed in his place, but who shall know what it is tomorrow, who shall know..." he muttered, "...and I do understand what is your meaning. I am ready to go that far if it is the only way to save my son when I am gone."

"Involuntary treatment..." Warp blurted.

-----Capital Planet Museum--------

 The visitors of Buzz' house climbed up the long marble stairs of the museum, heading to the upper floors. In the west wing of the building, were the study rooms and labs. There would also be held the meeting.

Zarah was back against the former Emperor when he stepped to the threshold of Ga-Losh' laboratory. Seeing her there, he let quite a loud and hollow greet in the air.

"Mrs Darkmatter!"

Choi did not need to hear but the first consonants coming out of Zurg's mouth, when she got her hackles in the air. She let a small scream and jumped right behind Warp's back. She did not even notice her own reaction, it was merely a reflex. Rapidly she twined her arms around his husband's waist and peeked cautiously from behind his robust body, who had scared her this way. The response was all because of Zora's husky voice; she was truly afraid of the man who had caused the worst nightmares of her life.

Warp did not quite catch the happenings. He shifted his eyes from Zarah to Zurg and opposite. The old one at the doorway looked worried and confused. No one of the three counterparts could produce half a word, Zarah was only panting in terror, the Emperor leering ashamed at the floor, Warp trying to calm down the panicking woman. The brands of the past were burned deep under Zarah's skin. So this way would begin their important symposium?

 The irritating intermezzo was eased when the familiar professor peeked out of a back room, gesticulating the odd group to come in there.

There, in armchairs, were sitting the members of Team Lightyear, Zeb Nebula, a botanist who indicated to be Colossus-Galosh's assistant Olim Th'Atch, and Zurg's bride. A wide smile spread on the face of the old emperor when encountering this woman. He gripped her up from her seat and gave her a big hug. "Quasars, Shmoopsiepoo! I have not seen you since yesterday! Did you remember to bring me the embroidery guide book so that I can start to learn crochet work even today?"

The young woman giggled, "Sure, sure, hun. It's in my bag." Mariañ was a 24-year-old girlish human with long copper brown hair, blue-green eyes, relevantly tall height and angular features. However, all in all, she was a beautiful and adorable creature.

"Oo, perfect! I shall do you a pillowcase with a large Z-letter sewn on it! And I promise it shall be a magnificent piece of work since it is _me_ who shall do it!" her a bit over-aged fiancé answered to the titters.

The rest in the room stole curious glances from each other. Talk about absurd pairings... Somehow this lightened up even Zarah's mood, so that she got rid of her angsty state of mind.

Slowly the conversation began. It handled the legends that rolled around tha-grydda and its repulsive home. Colossus-Ga'losh presented with a holo-book of his, summarising rapidly the this-far made notes and information anent the urgent talks. 

"This archived data disk contains the notes of an arctic explorer A. E. Nordenstjärn. 200 years ago he visited the planet, spending 4 months there studying the climate and surroundings. The whole voyage was a catastrophe; from those one hundred men that once took part of it, only 15 returned." he explained and pointed at the screen where the text was delineated. "As well as you are now, Nordenstjärn was enchanted by the legends about the ancient heyday of Isgurda he had studied for years. However, most of the trip was made in vain, he could not find an entrance to the so-called 'valley', where the herb would grow. If it even exists, then."

His assistant took the floor, instead. "The myth of that valley is again based on an elder manuscript, a book called "The Peregrinator's Journal". It was compiled over 400 years ago, by an archaeologist called Elokivi. It tells that one undetermined year after the destruction, some Isgurdian natives came back to the planet to search for the lost well of soundness. With efforts they found the growing place, a tropical oasis that was left to the shades of mountains, to volcanic soil. They collected the plant as much as they were able to and after that sealed the entrance to the forbidden place. So tha-grydda would stay beyond reach of everybody."

Zurg listened absent-mindedly the explanations of the scientists. He knew these stories by letter. It had been his hobby now for months to search for information concerning this medicine. The summaries were meant for the rest of those present.

After Olim had unloaded the old-fashioned info disk, Zora took his own topic forth. He had been tormenting Star Command's science department enough long for to send a scan satellite to orbit Isgurda. So much that they had lastly agreed to his beggings.

"And how are the infrared radar scans, may I ask?  If nothing, that shall bring us information about the veracity", he began.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Lightyear. We were just coming to that. Actually, the indications did show fluctuation in the temperatures. The satellite monitored especially the mountain range of Gaidarun." Olim snapped on a holo-diagram and ran his finger through the red bars that hovered in the air. "In the northern part of those mountains, were caught interesting indications. In the middle of the colder area was distinguished a round, pot-like occurrence of tropic temperature heights. By it could be assumed it being only volcanic activity, but there's something else, too. Traces based on carbon-type life, what ever it is then, were also added to these research results. There is life on Isgurda, hidden there somewhere."

"Jim-kraken-dandy..." Zora rubbed his fingers together, "I had understood that there must be a truth basis to this legend. And so shall it be. I am ready to take the risk and go to find the curative herb. Who is there willing to come with me?" he asked lastly the rest of the present alien and human beings.

 The project had been hanging sometime already in the sky. Everyone in the room was aware that this would be the following query. A light mumble vibrated among the air molecules, incoherent thoughts of what everyone should do. In addition, it was Zurg who asked this, not less or more but Zurg. Was his name whatever nowadays, it could not wipe away the lack of confidence.

"Are you absolutely sure that this fairy tale vegetable woul' be the only means to ameliorate our Captain?" XR grumbled from his corner.

Mariañ cast her regard towards the robot, "Relevant medicines are not available for the moment that could possibly dispossess the influences of the dark side. It may take years before such medicament is even developed. What is assumed of tha-grydda is that its impact on one's brains is to increase the levels of serotonin hormone. And partly that way bring the well-being. Well... that's what was written in 'the Peregrinator's Journal'."

"So... it's this or the destruction of Buzz Lightyear?" Mira sighed.

"Most likely", the elder Lightyear earnestly concluded.

"M-may I ask a question?" Booster peeped from his spot, seemingly afraid of something. "What were the dangers that were told there earlier? I mean the story about that Nerden... Nerdenstern... who was he? I mean that why did they come back with so few men?"

"Nordenstjärn. Oh, yes. I think my assistant interrupted the story. Let's see what the explorer says..." Colossus-Ga'losh took the holo-reader back to his hold. "Hmm... here it is. He tells that the coldness took some members but that there was something else... something unrecognisable breaking havoc."

Booster's mouth distorted even more. "W-What?"

"Uhm..." the professor cleared his throat, "He describes that the members of the crew were lost in an unknown way. In the night-time, obviously. Often it indicated when the dawn had risen that someone was missing, again. There were hardly ever traces left, only one time. Some marks of battle were found on the ground, but the wind and the new fallen snow had swept all the possible footprints away. Surely the lost ones were tried to find, but in vain. Nordenstjärn could not determine what it was all about; maybe it was some kind of a wild beast who had attacked them."

Zurg broke the conversation, resolution in his throat, "But we shall not go there without proper arrangements! We shall have guards, enough devices to protect ourselves against the wildness! Besides, Star Command gives us the resources."

"Indeed... because you kept hanging from my sleeve and requiring that so long that I had to give up", the Commander rolled his eyes. He received back a smug laugh that only Zurg could produce out of his massive chest.

"Yes, the LGM will give out proper vehicles, camping equipment and so on if the expedition group can be gathered. 20 space rangers will also volunteer to come with, added with a couple of scientists and doctors, so that makes 30 already."

"And I shall do this all because of my son. As I declare it out loud once again, it was my fault that this happened. And if you count yourselves to be the friends of my son and willing to help him, I trust that you shall come with me", the Emperor folded his arms over his chest.

"Team Lightyear reporting for duty", Mira nodded, although still with hesitation.

"Mr. Darkmatter?"

Warp fingered his chin for a while, envisaging Zarah. She nodded timidly back, making sure that if he was going, she would do that too. Being so much ashamed of her fear-reaction earlier that day, she was awkwardly willing to build some reliance towards Zora. She had been in such odd places already with Warp that could this one be any worse?

"Alrighto. Ya got us two."

So it was concluded. A travel based on merely nothingness, flitting after myths and fairy tales... 

------------

Later...

"You can't do this to me! You traitors!" An angry yell filled the air. It was muffled by a slam of the back door of an ambulance ship. Outside it on the pavement, stood the broken Team Lightyear with their commander, and Zora. 

Well-nigh tears in his eyes, the tall cheerless man moaned, "I did not want to do this to you, son. But it is for your best so that you shall not hurt your soul more than you have already done."

Nebula beside him was as moody. Buzz Lightyear, his friend beyond years had to suffer an experience like this. But it was he, who had signed the authorization to order Buzz to have involuntary care.

The hollers continued to echo even from inside the ship, cursing every person in the whole galaxy. The Commander turned his face away from the view, breathing deep in grievance.

"Where are they taking Buzz?" Booster asked when the white-jacketed ambulance men climbed back to the cockpit of their vehicle.

"To the moon of Planet Ur-Poremmi. To a mental hospital." Mira shrugged, glaring after the ship that was launched towards space.  There went their brave captain, fallen to such a state. Oh if there only would be the hope that he would one day return back to the light.


	3. The winter planet

3. The Winter Planet

The white, sparkling snow was serene, widening towards the eternal horizons of fairness.  Like tiny diamonds, the snowflakes glittered in every colour of the spectrum. Upon the ground, a light wind occasionally lifted a couple of those jewels up, making them swirl, twirl a little dance in the air. What an illusion, a deadly illusion...

Snow, nothing but snowfields. However, far in the distances was distinguished a bluish mountain range. It was merely a mirage, glowing like a ghost under the face of the friendly sky. A radar scanner affirmed, though, that it was solid rock, not a fake scene of warm and cold air molecules. Overhead all this, a pale sun cast its rays to cover the view. This was the planet of the everlasting winter, Isgurda.

A group of low-flying speeders approached the detected mountains. Behind them, the line was followed by a star cruiser. There would still be hours before anyone would ever reach the destination.

 Thus, the trip to unknown had been started. The white-blue peaks came nearer and nearer, communicating silently about their majesty that rose over a league towards the skies. Every one of the travellers felt awe in their hearts. Some of them wondered what the landscape had looked like in its ancient days of pure greenness. The nowadays-frosted rocks had once grown thick, lush forests... and now only ice crystals were the vegetation.

 The expedition group consisted of -as mentioned already- Team Lightyear, the Darkmatters, some voluntary space rangers, a botanist, a handful of chemists and other scientists, with Zurg leading the whole project. As he seemed to be the only one knowing exactly what to do, that responsibility had devolved upon him. He was constantly in touch with Star Command HQ members in addition of some other quarters, making reports about the advances and possible setbacks. He was very determined in his role; whatever the price would be, he would find a cure for his son.  

After seven hours more, the roots of the mountains were achieved. The vehicles had sleeked in the middle of smaller hillocks and rocks for some time already, letting the land ascend under them. But now it was proven that no one would fly onwards, any longer. Almost a firm rock face was ahead, only a narrow canyon was plotted onto the mile-high wall. And... it was almost filled with slide rocks, big and small. Only a lane-like path meandered in the bottom of the abyss. Sharp, projecting rocks hung upon all this. No ship would ever pass that labyrinth of nature. The group landed right at the opening of the mouth.

"Quasars! Double blasting toroids! It shall not be easy to get through that." Zurg cursed.

"Hmh... quite a nice pile of rocks... would be much work for PC-7's folks to chop those..." Warp raised his brows.

"I had expected this. In a certain way", the Emperor meditated, "And the satellite told that this would be the only route to the heart of those peaks. That is why we need to shift to other means. I shall order the men to unload the star cruiser."

So it was done as it was requested. A flock of burden animals (known as _brytares_), camping equipment, mining tools, weapons, nutrition supplies and so on were taken out of the largest ship. When the expedition had been started, it had been quite unsure, whether the course on the mountains would be easy or literally getting oneself through grey stones. Therefore there were gears for the both purposes; for to travel in a modern and in an ancient way. Now it indicated that despite all the super-hyper-high technology the LGM and other quarters provided, the widgets did not surpass the hard force of animals.

 When Zurg, Warp and others descended from their ships, for the first time they could feel the itching chill of the climate. So beautiful and calm it had seemed to be through the windshields, but now when the frost struck against the cheeks and nipped in the lungs, the magic was partly gone. Luckily every member of the expedition team had warm space suits on. However, as the air was breathable, there was no sense to use the helmets. And all the extra oxygen supplies needed to be spared. With the aid of thermal hoods, facemasks and air filtrates, it was nonetheless possible to breathe the planet's own air comfortably; no need for asthmatic reactions because of the degrees below. Every man and woman installed the external air warmers directly when putting their helmets off.

 Emperor Zurg had had somewhat problems to get used to a regular space suit. The LGM had designed the outfit for him, and after hours of debating had agreed to make it black-purple, because of a certain person's hard obsessions. No laser was built in it; Commander Nebula did not allow the ex-menace to carry such a thing. In other ways it was quite similar to a common space ranger uniform, had a jetpack, wrist communicator and some other gadgets.    

 Even now, standing there and conducting the unloading, Zora stirred in his costume and looked like rather discontent with it.

"What's the matter, a mouse got into your suit?" Warp came from behind him, guffawing to the displeased expression of Zurg.

"I do not get used to this. It is sweltering. And I am malcontent because the Little Green Grubs did not put a Z-letter onto the chest plate. I begged them to do it, a beautiful, curlicued Z-letter to decorate the front. But they denied it!" he glowered around.

Warp burst into horselaughs. "Well, quasars, I don't wonder why they didn't design yar space pyjamas like that! Li'l by li'l, ya shoul' get rid of that hang-up to those izzards! Pick up some other letter to worship! What woul' the rest of here think of you walkin' around in some emperor get-up? I wonder why ya didn't ask the foam-extinguisher-size aliens to attach a cloak to that space suit, too!"

Zurg was quite ashamed since that had been on his wish list when the particular object of heated speech was laid out. Now he protested, "What is wrong with zeta-letters? They are beautiful! They are the most glorious letters in the galaxy!"

"Yeah, but they'll just remind the others about yar previous identity. Shoul' be a bit careful with that. Ya know, _The Emperor_ is dead. Don't want the rest of this gang to start to suspect anything, since you're just a _Lightyear_ to them..."

"Ah, yes..." Zurg fingered his chin and obviously got the point. "Well, I shall continue to guide the work. You, rangers Ronto, Kaadu and Fambaa, remember to weight the loads so that every _brytare_ gets an equal clog! And the water filter machine shall be attached to the first animal walking in the row. Jim-kraken-dandy, this shall be magnificent to see brave men toiling in the middle of the wilderness!" he gave the directions and tried to creak his fingers together as if he had still had his clawed alloy-gauntlets on.

The three strong space rangers to whom he had spoken, continued their jobs. When neither Zora nor Darkmatter heard them, Fambaa, a one-eyed scaly alien, whispered to his companion, "Who on Mars is that man? Looks like Buzz Lightyear but acts and talks like the deceased Evil Emperor Zurg!"

"Go figure... The ground carries all kinds of creatures on its pebbles. I've heard he's some relative of that particular captain and he's at the head of this expedition", Kaadu answered and picked up a large food package.

"Ha-ha... maybe he once worked for Zurg and that way adopted the way to gesticulate like that!"  Ronto suggested and left his two chums to chuckle to his sayings.

So the caravan prinked itself up. Twenty brytares were freighted with the necessities, in addition that the intelligent beings carried backpacks. The animals were powerful yak-type arctic creatures, used to low temperatures. Despite their large size, they were amazingly nipper in difficult terrains, climbing up steep upwards slopes like nothing. Now, the ships were left behind to rest on their current spots, as the team stepped into the canyon. 

Already for the very first day, the cruel forces of the nature were encountered. As the plain grounds were abandoned and everyone had dived into the mountains, the easiness was blown away with the wind. Wandering there among obstacles required hard physical efforts from both the animals and the alien beings. Sometimes it was getting over a large cliff, sometimes crossing a deep crack. Slowly but surely the group entered the rocky grounds further and further. The food needed to be rationed, it came quickly clear that there grew nothing among the snow. It was not even sure were there any life forms lurking in the rock holes. The brytares, however, were such an animal species that could survive long without proper food. If they were once fed well, they could come along one month not even seeing grass.

 For no one it was clear, what kind of route to use. It was merely built on wishes and hopes that some kind of path to the destination would be found. The approaching was studied on a holo-map, which drew a satellite picture of the whole mountain range. The infrared, warm-temperatured image of the valley was there at the end, under a holo-compass. The star command satellite that furthermore orbited Isgurda, studied the lands from up there and gave somewhat imperfect scans about the possible canyons and easier ways.

 Already before the trip, it had come as the matter of course that the snow was not "drinkable". Water could be produced and melted out of it, but it needed certain filters so that it was suitable to use. Namely the atmosphere of the planet was not completely pollutant-free. In the upper layers of it, were large amounts of sulphur dioxide and other less convenient compounds, which were mixing up with the snow clouds and coming down then messed together with the white cold feathers. The bodies of the brytares were able to stand the bi-products of that snow, but not the rest of the travellers. So, all the drink water was filtrated through a complex purification system machine.

 The nights on the planet were extremely cold. On the daytime, the sun of Iskallth System tendered some friendly rays to warm gently the travellers. But as it descended beyond the horizon, the ink-black, tomb-cold night fell upon the landscape. The decrease of the temperature was between 20 and 30 Kelvins compared to the sunny season. For the sleeping, there were heated-up tents that were set up a bit here and there. It was deadly difficult to find any even space for the camps. Also the tent canvases were not unproblematic to attach. Into the frozen land, the pegs did not sink very willingly. But after all, the foundering into the dreams was not that incommodious. The air-filled mattresses were soft, lamp crystals afforded snug light, and warmness filled the marquees. One of Zurg's advances was that he had taught the LGM to produce the 'heat cubes' the Zurgean factories had once invented. So even for the night guards it was comfortable to sit out there, in the shelter of the air huts the cubes created.

 The travel went on. XR was the only one who constantly protested the ongoing. It was not hard to figure out, why. His caterpillars were not actually designed for skiing. So the soft snow occasionally locked them totally. He attempted to use his jetpack, too, to advance somehow in his way. That however, was not quite rationable. The flames coming out of the engines melted the snow quite rapidly under them. In proportion as he went on, the molten hydrogen oxide was dropped onto the heads of the other travellers, icing then rapidly on their space suits. Therefore the robot was ordered to be carried by one free beast of burden.

 The third journey day was soon to incline towards its end. Booster toiled beside the animal whose rider the robotic ranger was.

"Phew! I believe that my diet plan will be fulfilled after this travel..." the Jo-Adian puffed. He was climbing over a big, snowy rock.

"Well about the time! I think that plan has been going on a zillion years, already", XR yawned. "You would finally fit to the normal-sized ranger suit."

"Gee..." Booster leered around ashamed. "I never though expected this trip to be this toilsome. I just hope we're not gonna encounter any bad dangers... I'm kinda afraid what's gonna happen..." He reached the top of the rock and was ready to glide it down on his hinterland. "Whee, a slide!"

"Yeah, dangers... I think mister Nordenstjärn was a bit overreacting in his legendary report. Let's face it. We haven't met any killer bees or cannibal crocodiles or vampire bats nor giant carnivorous plants... those are the usual." XR counted with his fingers. "In the worst case, you might indicate to be a tasty lunch for an evil snow lizard." the teasing went forward.

"Ummh... do you think there might be really evil snow lizards here?" the rotund ranger was now quite afraid.

"Hee hee... anything may be happening on a planet whose history '_The Peregrinator's Journal_' describes to occur '_long time ago in a galaxy, far far away...'_" Warp's husky and sarcastic voice reached the two pals. He passed by, Zarah's titters echoing behind him. She mostly travelled beside Warp, since the man wanted to enjoy her company and she did not want to be near the ex-emperor. The male Darkmatter had tried to advance a friendship between those two, but mostly in vain. A severe expression always rose up to Zarah's face when Warp talked about going to visit Zurg's tent in the evenings. And what Zora felt about the whole situation, was the most awkward thing yet on the trip. He would have so much wanted to let Choi understand how sorry he was... sorry about that he had tortured her almost dead and attempted to kill her twice after that. But the zurgophobia was not that easy to heal.

Towards night, the camp was established into a small valley. This time, the ice mat was smooth. The place was like a pothole in the middle of the ten-mile high summits, the sky distinguishing as a little patch of stars somewhere above there. The guards, four robust rangers with plasma blasters, settled down to their seats at the four corners of the bivouac. The members of Team Lightyear scrambled to their own tents each other, Warp and Zarah to their shared one, Zurg to his one (Does it need to be mentioned that it was purple?) and the rest into theirs. The Emperor, however, kept his lights on quite long after the usual silence. That was a rumour topic for the guards. What did that big, mysterious man do there so late? Usually they heard even low talk from there. And after all, he was supposed to be alone.

 So the night went on... the black coldness surrounding the slumbering encampment. But when the sun cast its first beams from the middle of the mountain tops, the impression of serenity was slayed. One of the guards was missing. No voice answered to the confused hollers of the thunderstruck awakeners. 

...to be continued...


	4. Bitter misfortunes

4. Bitter Misfortunes

----------------

As it was told, the morning opened up to the gloomy sentiments of confuse. Where was one of the guards? A young, talented space ranger named Al Deraan had vanished as if the ground would have swallowed him. The members of the expedition group shoaled around the camp, searching for any puny detail there might have been left from the night. The other three guards that had had their watches were as flabbergasted as anyone else. Sitting in the four different corners of the tent area, they had not heard anything, not to mention seeing or smelling. A dense snowfall had reigned the night, so that it had been cumbersome to distinguish anything around. However, how much Deraan was called by name, he did not answer. There were no markings left on the snow, nothing that could tell about his lost odysseys.

The first thing to do was to put up a search party to track Deraan. The whole valley was studied in a 2-mile diameter circle. Since it was surrounded almost by vertical stone walls, after 3 hours of futile examines the plan had to be withdrawn. The unlucky ranger would stay missing.

So the concerned voice of Zurg was there to give new directions to the whole camp. "We shall not give up because of this. We do not know what happened to Mister Deraan. By quasars, I hope that this shall not repeat itself. We all knew we would face unknown dangers on this trip. However, we have to go on. We shall scan the areas further when we are on our way. We cannot stay here since we do not have food supplies for eternities and we need to approach the destination."

Everyone admitted that the old man was right. The painful expressions stayed on everyone's faces, when the encampment was undone. What had been the destiny of ranger Deraan? That question and a million of others was on everyone's lips. In addition, more were there after the ensuing night. Another victim disappeared somewhere into the cruel wilderness of the mysterious planet.

Reports were done to Star Command HQ and the only suitable orders for to guarantee the safety was to harden the bulwark. For this time on, the site was done more densely and some electric detectors were installed around the quarters. But what did they help...? After a couple of days, during a blizzard night, a third soul was gone. Only the wind told about the lost moments of ranger Fambaa... another brave volunteer who had risked himself to come to search for the mythical herb. Despite this all, the travel needed to be continued. Every morning the tents were put back into their collapsible states, loaded to the backs of the burden animals. A small amount of miles was advanced during the daylight, en route for the aim.

Towards the night, a week after the foremost obfuscating occurrences, Zurg, Team Lightyear and the Darkmatters were gathered into a large meeting tent with the scientists. The issues handled this and that, from the deciphering of _The Peregrinator's Journal_ to the inscrutable missings.

"Nebula has still given his straight opinion that we should continue the trip", Zora nodded to the rest sitting at a collapsible table.

"Well, what comes to the tour overall, we must acknowledge that we have approached the detected destination a bit faster than we thought. The course seems to be quite clear... and the satellite scan has told that there is quite a trafficable canyon leading to the possible 'valley' entrance", one of the scientists took his words up.

"But... then there are the unfortunate _other things_. No traces, nothing. How is it even explainable that we have lost three persons in such a spooky way? Like some ghosts would have kidnapped them", Mira rubbed her palms together and blew into them to get the coldness away.

"We're facing the same stuff as Nordenstjärn... since that chum was not keen on to explain it in his scribbles, so how are we gonna find it out?" Warp meditated.

"What changes are there left? It's either some kind of animal that does this or then an intelligent being. This far we don't even know if the missing persons are alive."

"Well Princess, they got strictly two changes, fifty-fifty, dead or the latter. But if we consider the mathematical odds, then..." XR estimated.

Rolling her eyes, Mira interrupted him, "Would you now shut the hatch of sarcasms and put the rationality sensors on? No one needs to hear you counting that the death odds are nearly one hundred percent."

"Well that's what I was gonna..." the robot began but finally understood from the others' glares to stay put.

"Uh... how about to put some kind of fence around the camp? It would maybe... uh... protect?" Booster shyly pointed out. The last days he had been so afraid that barely got a quarter of syllable out of his mouth.

"But that shall be a magnificent idea!" Zurg 's face widened into a surprised smile, "How in this Galaxy can it be doable that I never comprehended that with my very superior brains... uh... I mean that it shall be a very good idea to realize that." With somewhat shimmering cheeks, Zora had to admit to himself that maybe he should little by little quit the habit to praise his own intelligence, like he had continuously done as being the Emperor. Somehow he had understood that those declarations caused more or less astonished goggles in the people nearby.

Meanwhile, Zarah had let her brain-CPU buzz. "I think it would be possible to construct a modest plasma-electric fence in a couple of days. We don't have much supplies to do that, but maybe a solution could be invented", she told from her seat, sketching circuit models in the air with her finger.

Warp patted her on her crown, announcing that he would give her a helping mechanical hand. He was glad to notice that progressively her fears towards Zurg had somewhat faded, so that she dared to begin such a discussion in the presence of the notorious ex-despot.

Next the interlocutory swerved to handle the so called guide book. Zora read aloud another legend that told about the entrance-sealing of the forbidden valley. The myth depicted quite firmly, what there was to expect, if it ever was credible.

"So... the book tells that we should expect to find a cave tunnel that leads to a door of some kind?" Mira drummed the surface of the table with her fingers.

"Yeah, as corny as it sounds. A tunnel with possible booby traps and some kind of riddles to be solved. Like in an old Indiana Jones film", Warp guffawed.

"Maybe X marks the spot even this time!" XR added.

"Shush!" Zurg interjected with a chest-tone. "There should be two pillars of some kind stamping the cave. If we find those... _that_ already shall testify that the chronicle has a truth basis, Jim-kraken-dandy!"

"Aa, pillars? Like in ancient Greek? Heh, on whatever planet that was then", Darkmatter gave one more sceptical laugh.

"Let us face it, we ought to believe in what we are in the middle of. Quasars, if everyone shall begin to consider the whole thing only as some obi-van-kenobi-trash in the middle of the expedition, the whole basis of it shall drop away", Zurg sighed annoyed.

"Hey, hey, Izzard, relax. I got the point!" Warp put his hands in the air to defend himself.

Zora installed the disk of _The Peregrinator's Journal_ into the holo-reader and let his long, thin fingers wander across the current 3D-image. It was a scanned drawing of some sort, illustrating letters of an ancient language.

"Now this here is a drawing of a steele found on Planet Ma'to-Purkki, the 7th satellite of Iskallth system sun. This text tells that in the end of that cave tunnel, there shall be a doorway leading to the destination. And what it narrates about the sealings of the entrance, according to it, the locks are based on mathematics. It gives a side-note here that the one who would be intelligent enough to be able to find an opening key, ought to be worth of to enjoy the healing powers of tha-grydda..."

Zurg's sentence was cut short by anxious yells coming from outside the tent. Soon a head of a space ranger peeked in, panting messily, "It was there! Out there in the border of the camp! Our men tried to shoot it but I think it got away!"

"What?" all the inside-lodgers exclaimed in unison.

"I don't know what it was! We saw only some distant figure in the shadows. But it must've related to the missing rangers. Come and see!"

So all the men and women rushed out of the marquee.

At the northern border of the camp, the guards had gathered to inspect the outside district. It was completely dark out there, since the night had fallen for some time ago. Three sturdy males stood there, their stun blasters ready.

"There it went. I think we got a hit, it kept some weird noises. Like low groan or something", ranger Kaadu pointed at the snows. "Should we go after it?"

But a voice of reason came from the direction of Team Lightyear.

"It is too much of a risk to leave the camp at this time of the night and go after that... _thing._ It might attack the remained people from the other side, while the rest of us would be tracking it. So we suggest it's better to leave it to the morning."

Everyone agreed that this was very rational. However... the time and randomness played with ruthless equations, once again. When the friendly morning sun appeared to cheer up the explorers, the new snow that had fallen during the small hours, had swept away all vouchers. Nothing could be done but to extend arms in the air in profound disappointment.

One sacrifice was immolated on the altar of unknowns, before the shield fence was put up. However, after that, the uncanny attacks seemed to end totally. A couple of days had passed without a sign of exterior hazard. Now there would be only the usual ones; the deadly frost, the avalanches, and the poisonous snow. While advancing on the way, the explorers were gradually lulled to the beliefs that nothing serious would happen any more. Yet, the merriment of the atmosphere was completely gone, giving headway to stern and sad faces. The regulations were now somewhat eased, it was given a permission for the camp members to move normally around, inside the fence area. The protection was put fast up using every piece of junk and better application available. In its power, the fence would give a stunning electric shock to the one that dared to touch it.

Nevertheless... under no circumstances should be relied too much on technology...  

---------------

Two days later (UGT, Universal Galactic Time), on a distant planet...

"They betrayed me! The traitors! Closed me here for no reason! They didn't have the right to do that. I, a healthy citizen of Capital Planet, a hero space ranger, closed here among some idiots and freaks!"

A low murmur of frenzy filled a small, white room. There was almost nothing but a bunk, a table, a lamp and some miscellaneous objects like holo-disks surrounding a common-type holo-transmitter computer. A minor window brought in some rays of the blue twin suns that were squatting above the horizon. But the beams were pale, sweeping the window only for a short while during the long day. The frames namely opened up to an inner courtyard, where a mighty tefloyd-7-terrillium carbonic alloy wall created depressing shades.

In this gloomy chamber a man was walking a sole circle around the floor. Buzz Lightyear... or what was left of him. As strong in physics he was as always, but the mind, the rays of his heroic and honest awareness had fragmented completely. Closing him up here had not been a wise choice. It moreover had made him sourer, letting him sulk alone his dispiriting existence. This was his new home in the mental asylum of Planet Ur-Poremmi. Three times a day he was directed to get therapy, in addition of the heavy medicines he was filled with.

But the dark side seemed still stronger in his body than ever. Its influences had only deepened in this oppressing atmosphere. Buzz felt hatred towards everybody, being profoundly disappointed to his 'friends', who had imprisoned him here. Only if he could have comprehended that it was for his best. But no, the dark side did not relinquish. It crammed his ears with whispers that told he had been betrayed, that his friends and family were his enemies... and the cankering emotion of wanting revenge was there too. Singing its lonely and tempting aria in Lightyear's head... He was just like Zurg had been in his young days after Adi-Gaia's death... like father, like son. As the ex-emperor himself had declared, the darkness did not give up easily. If it had lost one person from its clutches, it was ready to suck the next one in.

"My own father deceived me! By treating me like I was some kind of a menace to the whole world! Moreover _he_ is. Why did he lock me into here? Explanations, explanations... blast, as if I was sick, somehow", Lightyear exorcised to the walls and furniture. No one was here to hear his flames.

"More and more medications! Trying to dumb me full of some drugs! Craters, I'm as healthy as ever. Maybe even healthier than I have been. As I've slowly grown conscious of the rivals around me... as they say, the family is often the worst foe."

Buzz kept on tramping in the cabin. He did not actually conceive in his heart how much he had entered the dark side. He merely thought there was nothing wrong with him, although he had adopted an attraction towards things he had previously kept evil in his life. The virtuous Captain Lightyear would never have accepted avenge or abhorrence... but was he that, any longer?

He had grown keen on recalling the days when he had been with his Father on Planet Z, as the freshly-baked apprentice of the Emperor. For that short while, he had experienced something new, some kind of new glory... and that allured him more and more. Buzz almost regretted that those hours were over. How much he could have learned from that Master... who had now entered the light and with efforts wiped away the wrongness.

With incoherency Buzz although processed this all in his brains. Something said that he should not have listened to the tones that commanded him to get acquainted with the things Zurg had once taught him. And he had been formerly so relieved to see how Zora accepted the common laws of human life, leaving behind it all and regretting...

"What is the truth? What is the path I'm going to walk?" Lightyear inquired himself continuously. "Whatever it is, it's not going to happen in here, not in this weirdo dungeon... first thing to do to arrange my life would be to find a way out of here. Then I could start to re-cogitate my future..."

His eyes darkened under his black brows. "But my path is not to walk among those who consider me as a peril on their way... that is the blasted group starting from Commander Nebula on. I can't believe that _even he_ was so blind to believe that I'm some kind of a nemesis to the galaxy! There's nothing wrong with me, nothing!"

The former ranger stepped at the window to feel the heavy bars with his hands. "Behind bars. Like some animal. Some stupid, mindless animal. Here I'm not even treated as an intelligent being. Watching people who wear jardinières as hats and dress up to ballerinas... no. I have to get out of here."

He came to ponder about the cruel facts. How would he do that? The security was strict, it was nearly impossible to skedaddle. And where would he go? Not to Capital Planet. There were only those rangers standing at every street corner like some lampposts. Buzz considered it quite ridiculous that he would have to avoid meeting his work mates, as if he had been some kind of wanted assassinator.

"Trade World... that might be the only nook where I could hide safely. Although I know very well what the so-called 'safety' there is. But at least there are sewers where I could start to live my own life, out of reach of those loons in Star Command... and come to think of it... maybe a rugged ranger like me knows a couple of tricks how to get out of here. Blast, I've infiltrated Planet Z, fled a million of traps and fatalities..." Clenching his fists, he nearly let his spit fly in the air while declaring out loud, "So why am I still sheepishly cringing here? Under the supervision of some guards that have never reached the grades or distinctions I have?"

Lightyear sat down onto his bed to reflect the out-popped idea further. There was this male who came to bring him food and med doses in every once in a while. Maybe Buzz could take an advance of that situation?

"I have to find some other clothes to wear if willing to tiptoe out of here... and that alien is somewhat my size... if not a bit taller." The son of Zurg fingered his cleft, letting his brain-wheels roll so that they creaked. "Let's see... one and half hours before he comes, again. And as I have studied my room, there are no surveillance radars installed here. Maybe they did not consider me as such a bad case that I would have needed 89 hours of constant oversight." (Pardon me the odd expression, but Planet Ur-Poremmi has such an amount of hours in one day.)

So came the time of supper. Lightyear waited silently, sitting on the bed, when the metal door whooshed open. A yellow-skinned, reptile-looking sturdy alien stepped in with a flivver full of food and medicament. As usual, there was another caretaker at the entrance, observing that no snakes or lions would eat the one stepping in.

"Good evening, Mister Lightyear", the alien quite politely greeted, arranging then some food plates onto the table. Buzz only frowned at him. With his regard, he searched for a solution to his sentiment chain. And there was something that caught his attention. The remote control device of the doorway was resting there on the flivver.

"Never leave the remote off your fingers", Buzz snorted to the stupidity of the guard. With a flash-quick move, he had grapped the gadget into his hands. One push at the radical red button... and the sliding door was closed.

Lightyear was now alone to face a closer encounter of the third kind. The alien, who had tinkered with the supper, had not had the time but to startle a little bit. As his last memory image was left a picture of four knuckles hitting his jaw. And that their owner had held his remote appliance. With a small thud, the first guard fell limb onto the floor.

"First mission accomplished. Now the second one", Buzz dryly thought out.

The man, who was left behind the closed gateway, banged its metal surface with his fists.

"Pokasaha, is everything okay there?" a muffled noise came in.

The skilled ranger knew what to do. He pitched his voice a bit higher, feigning to be the person addressed. "Yes, Viemäri, ev'rything's fine, the door just jammed a bit..."

"Try to get it open. Or do I call the floor custodian?" Viemäri answered from behind the walls.

"I think I got it fixed... just a nanosec..."

For the same moment, the doorway opened again, with the result that the guard standing in the corridor side was drawn rapidly in. Another hit and thud, and the both unlucky madhouse gaolers were in the lands of more or less sweet dreams. If this had happened in an animated series, a bunch of little birds could have been seen flying around their heads.

"What a duo of losers", Buzz puffed when he closed the entrance once again and watched his two victims lying on the floor. "I've always known that there is something supreme in me, if it's not my intelligence, then it's my skills to handle situations."

The next job was to change clothes. The ex-captain was wearing only white hospital pyjamas; he could possibly not run along the corridors in those. Besides, he knew he needed a good disguise, if he wanted to get even further than the first yucca palm at the hall joint. So he was soon dressed to official blue _Class 6. Guardian -clothes._ Those garments taken from Pokasaha were indeed too large for him, but this was not the moment to think about fashion issues. Lastly Buzz emptied the pockets of the both sentinels and pressed Viemäri's cap deep over his head.

"Now, let's see... they have a couple of hundreds of uni-bucks here..." he fumbled the other alien's wallet. "An identity card... a door-opener... these are important stuff for me... the photos of his pet cat and octopus-looking girlfriend he can keep... hmh... ah, bingo, an identity disk key. This must be fitting to some kind of a ship. Might be a Lambda-class shuttle... I've seen these things."

To conclude his fine work, Lightyear took an injection needle from the flivver. He filled it with the sleeping-draught that was meant for him, and next let it stream into the vessels of the both indolents.

"Have a nice nap time! You won't be making a drill for a while", he laughed shortly and stepped out of the room. The metal door was locked behind him, as he now headed towards the lower floors of the mental hospital. How he would ultimately find his way out of that planet, was still a messy ball of yarn to be untangled. 

------------------

Meanwhile on Isgurda, in the camp... (As far as we consider of different calendars on each planet, the narrator is not going to give a depicted explanation why it was night for the same time on both planets.)

In the middle of the deepest night, Zarah woke up to feel a burning thirst. Blinking her eyes there in the half-dark tent, she came to remember that she had not drunk any water before she went to sleep, nor in quite a long time before that. Her throat was plagueing dry, like the sands of Xaneda.

"Wonder where the water bottle is... must be at the entrance of the tent..." she thought in half-sleep and attempted to get up. Nevertheless, it was somewhat troublesome. As usual, she was sleeping in the embrace of Warp, this time his massive right robot arm resting on her back. Surely it felt safe to have that kind of protector, but getting away from under that hunk of metal was a bit of a problem. Shifting 30 kilos away was not an easy task for a little woman like Choi.

"Jumping bipolar junction transistors... starting to lift weights in the middle of the night!" she cursed, "Uff... now... it's getting off... I should get the annual prize of intergalactic athletics because of this labour!" Quietly, hoping that she had not woken up her mate, she scrambled up from the camp bed. Warp kept snoring calmly and hugging empty air, not aware of Zarah's absence.

"Now where is that water bottle?" she leered around and sniffed every corner of the tent. One plastic flagon there was, but it was completely empty.

"Phew... do I need to travel to that water-filtering machine to get some fluids?" she rolled her eyes in frustration, not willing to step out to the chillness of the arctic. "Oh, well, maybe there is no other choice. Whatever, maybe I can chat with the guards for awhile."

So, she installed the warming mask over her face and stepped out of the warm marquee. The black breeziness was there to encounter her like a wall, making her flutter her eyes when the aching frost bit the mucosa. In the other hand, she carried the empty bottle, and in the other one a stun blaster just for security. Out there, the sky was cloudless, the millions of star twinkling above the murkiness. It was a brilliant, awesome sight. On Capital Planet, the distant suns never were this clear since the blaring lights of the settlement faded them almost utterly. And Xaneda, her second home... what could be ever seen tens of metres under the surface?

Walking her regard raised up, she did not see a lonely hind leg of a sleeping brytare, and stumbled to it. Laughing to her own absent-mindedness, she got up from the snow and headed to the water machine. There it hummed, at the rear end of the camp. All the time the widget filtered poisonous ingredients out of snow, thus making it suitable for sorer life forms. Zarah had to admit that she felt it quite spooky to approach it there, alone. But the figure of a guard was there, near, so her fears were soon gone. And of course the plasma fence was there. What was the main thing now was that she would get her burning thirst satisfied.

"I guess I can go to throw a couple of sentences to that guard after the bottle is filled", she thought and watched the man's shadow sitting there at a distance. What she wondered a bit was, that the object of sight was that immovable.

"Hmh. Sits there like a statue. Hopingly not slumbering." She shook her head and installed the bottle under a hose, which leaded to a large tub where fresh water was kept a bit over 274 Kelvins. In the bitter truths, the guard _was_ asleep. That was why he had not spotted Zarah, nor given any questioning.

The fluids streamed slowly in. She took a cup and becalmed the fire of her dry gums. The girl got a bit irritated because the machine was so slow in its functions.

"Dratted wreck, must be some old model the LGM dumped to us." But she winced from her thoughts as she heard a small thud from behind her.

"What..." she turned about and in a reflex rose up the stun blaster to cover her. But there seemed to be nothing, only the shades of the valley above the snow. Gulping in sudden fear she asked slowly, "W-who's there?"

No answer. In her light panic Zarah now hoped she would have woken up Warp and had forced him to come with her. But wasn't there the fence to hinder every possible danger? In any case, the bottle was almost full, so she decided to take it as quick as she could and get back to her tent.

_"Thump!"_

 There it was again. The strange noise. She turned about one more time... and after that, her eyes went black. The world was drawn away from under her, leaving only a somber dream instead.

...to be continued...


	5. Tracking of a menace

5. The Tracking of a Menace

"No, Mommy... not fish liver oil again, it's yucky..." Warp mumbled in his sleep, obviously seeing traumatic dreams about his childhood. "No...Mommy, no oatmeal! I want a candy bar..."

Little by little the slumbering alien caught the reality and squinted his blurry eyes.  "Mmm... Za, babe, give yar big hero a hug..." he turned to lie on his side, fumbling the empty air beside him. Just then he conceived that it was morning. And that there was no one in his arms.

"Umh... babe? Za li'l? Where'd ya go?" Darkmatter sat up and searched for his target with his regard. Grumbling he then decided to scramble up, after assuring that the girl was not hiding under the camp bed. "Za, you're gonna get scolds for this. Your Master is not pleased to find an empty, cold spot beside him when he wakes up!"

In the camp, the explorers mainly used to sleep their space suits on. What came to Warp, he had only loosened the harder upper part of his Agent Z-costume and now rapidly attached it on with some bolts. "Blegh... another hard hay to paddle in the snow... would be the time already for the rotten veggie to be there. Quasars, how I'm longing for a goo-ood holiday on Mahombus 6..." he yawned and finally stepped into the pale sunlight. Before going to eat breakfast, he would come across his wife and at least chase her because of her not being there to give him an embrace after his horrible nightmares.

The camp had a common cook, who made an assortment of meals from breakfast to supper. There were several opinions about the delicacy of his boilings; for some they were the heaven of epicurism, for some... let us just say that the 'some' would have rather eaten roasted shoe bottoms. Nevertheless, in any case, everyone had to eat, what there was on the daily menu, if they wanted not to starve.

 Booster, as always, was the first one to rush at the big stewpan, where the morning soup was steaming with a little odd side-scent in its nose-itching reeks. The big ranger bumped to Warp, who was trying to figure out where Zarah was.

"Hey, Munchapper, have you seen my tootsie... ahem, have you seen Mrs. Darkmatter?" the blue creature asked the Jo-Adian, leering constantly around.

"No. But hot rockets, you have to come to eat breakfast, now! Guess what there's today?" Booster jumped his both feet together with enthusiasm, "Ranger Örkkimössö has made parsnip pudding and sauerkraut with vinegar gravy... yummy yum! And the best of all, there's _oolated squiggs_!"

Warp was to choke into his own gulps and hoped hard that he would have still some protein cookies left, to be able to avoid today's gastronomy finesses. He left Booster to run alone into the refectory tent.

"Now where is she? In the worst case, I'll find her in that notorious eating tent, feasting with those... ahem... yuckies", he thought annoyed and continued the search. Around him, the camp gradually was undone, to make way this day's approachable miles.

"Gah. Where IS she? I need my hug!" Darkmatter almost puffed with resentment, when approaching Zurg's tent. Some strange muttering was coming out of there; still the door canvas was tightly closed. Being bothered because of the futile seeking, Warp inferred that it would be reasonable to ask the Emperor if he had seen her a shade of her... or in the best case, she would be sitting in that tent and discussing with Zora.

"Hey, Izzard, have you seen Zar..." Warp put his head into the marquee, but was to drop his eyes. The old man sat on his camp bed, talking into his wrist communicator. He had a vast assortment of differently-coloured balls of yarn spread onto the bunk blanket. In his other hand, he was keeping something that looked like a half-made crochet work. A self-conscious expression on his face, he whined into the electronic comm. link, "But... Smoopsiepoo, Harebell, my Willowherb... I ran out of yellow yarn! How am I now going to finish the beautiful zeta-letter I was going to put in the middle of this kettle-holder... It is not glorious without it..." 

A woman's voice answered something back from the other side of the channel.

"ZURG?" Darkmatter almost hacked in his laughters, "_What are you doing_?"

Never had Warp seen the Emperor getting his cheeks so red for sudden shame. It was merely ridiculous to see the tall, dangerous-looking man in the middle of the little wool balls and crochet hooks, babbling to his too-young-for-him girl.

Lightyear gradually got the normal colour onto his face, declaring then severely. "Darkmatter. Do NOT call me with that name. You do remember that this person does not exist. What do you want?"

"Emh... I was just gonna ask, have you seen my wife? I've looked every hole here an'..."

Suddenly Zurg bolted up, letting all the yarn balls trundle onto the ground. "What? She did not get back?"

"Get back from where?"  Warp shrugged baffled.

"I saw her in the night, going to get some water. I was having a private discussion with my... ahem... never mind. Quasars, in any case, I was awake and saw her through my tent window going to get water."

A disgusting taste filled Warp's mouth and a pestering gush went through his brains. "No... can't be. Zora, you come with me, now." Grapping the older man's arm, he forced him to leave his dear handiwork.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." Darkmatter bit his lips while the men ran towards the filtering machine. No one had been there since the night hours. The cook had his own water supplies stored into his place, as well as the other explorers had had them enough, not to be obliged to go get more throat moistener. Warp's heavy boots followed angstly the trail towards the filterer... only to encounter a very displeasing view. No snow had fallen last night to hide the scenery. A plastic bottle lied on the snow, its open inners frozen a long time ago. Beside it, was a loose warming mask. From behind the machine, came large, sole-like footprints towards it, heading then back where they had come from. Moreover, among them, were mixed something that only a small woman would produce when walking on that white cover.

Warp could nothing but gasp for air in terror. No sound could he produce out of his vocal cords. He stood there stiff, gaping at the larger dent on the ground, where someone had obviously been laying a fraction of time. Zurg therefore had not lost his sense that much, but ran to the plasma fence that was supposed to have hindered further catastrophes. And more Job's news. Between two ion-producing shafts, there was a metre-large gap, caused obviously by a random short circuit. The plasma kept streaming every place else, shielding the surroundings, but not in that one particular place. What was more, the monstrous prints came right from that loophole.

"Through my Lost Empire... quasars, the quasary dratted quasar is BROKEN!" Zurg bellowed with his hollow voice so that the mountains echoed back his frenzy.

For the while, the ex-Agent Z had recovered somewhat from his mind attack, although still panicking around. He bolted to Zora, following the trail. "My poor Zarah... no..." Salty

teardrops rolled onto the warming mask on his face. "H-how is THIS POSSIBLE?" he left a curse in the air, "Where were the guards? Why has no one reported about this? Drat it, there was no guards missing! What have they done during the night? Played darts?"

"We must go after her and now." A female voice came from behind the men. "Before it's too late." Mira stood there, gravely inspecting the hills outside the camp, where the evident mystery hazards spawned. She had heard so much of the discussion that she was perfectly up-to-date. And behind her, the rest of the intelligent life forms were paying more and more attention to what was happening there at the rear end of their cosy encampment. The Jo-Adian appeared beside Mira, followed by the robot ranger. The rotund one was eating his mouth full of something, obviously he had had the time to pick up some parsnip pudding, already.

"Wh...what has happened?" he peeped, when seeing the chaos.

"Mrs. Darkmatter is gone. Some kind of creature has napped her", Mira explained and pointed at the marks.

Booster's jaw dropped. "It... It's a Jedi!"

XR beside him rolled his eyes. "Not a _Jedi_. A _Yeti_. Those two have a completely different meaning. The latter is the big-hairy-scary-dangerous arctic ape you're referring to."

"No time for wondering what has been here. It is the same one, or one of the _similar ones_ that have  demanded already five offers. We must go after it", Zurg concluded, beginning to bulldoze his way back, away from the spectator circle that had now gathered around the horror scene.

"And I want to know who is responsible of this! Where is the guard who was supposed to keep noise out here?" Warp shouted, wiping his eyes. "This can't have happened unless the diligent, scrupulous lack-wit has been taking naps during his work time!"

The culprit did not need to be searched for too long. Ranger PuuCee Huuhkaja had been the hero of the night. He was found skulking behind the outhouse. Apparently he understood fully what had been his -to put it mildly- gigantic error. The ranger was brought under the nose of Zurg for interrogation.

"I... I guess... I d-did... fall asleep... b-but j-just for a ti-tiny weeny second!" he joggled in front of Zora's piercing stare.

"Quasars, you lower than earthworm's whelp! You've been snoring all night long! It was your responsibility to guard the southern side!" Warp collared the unlucky watchman, letting now merely his spit fly on the face of his anger target. Huuhkaja only howled something fear-mingled when Darkmatter lifted him up and shook the man so that his space suit joints clattered.

"Do you understand, you idiot, what you have done? It's my wife missing! And you let her be captured out there, on the mercy or who-knows-what!" Sparkles of yeasty wrath coming from his eyes burned imagined holes into this one careless ranger. Soon both Zurg and Booster grapped Darkmatter from his both arms and forced him to let go of Huuhkaja.

"Calm down, now! It doesn't help a bit, even if you made mush out of him! It won't bring your wife back", Mira also attempted to cool the man, out of whose mouth was nearly foam coming.

"Yes, we need to go to track her now!" XR understood.

So it was arranged, that half of the explorers formed a search-and-rescue party, while the rest were left to stay at the bivouac. Team Lightyear, Zurg, Warp and some others dashed after the booty, armed with necessary equipment. Boosted by yells and other less pleasant noises, the group advanced fast by following the track of sole prints, but then faced a catch 22-situation. When arriving to the roots of a cliff, the markings juts vanished, as if a broom would have swept them away. After some minutes of pondering what to do, the team decided to rake the plains around the beginning mountain, in the faith that the creature would have somehow rased its trail. 

However, after several hours of shuffling here and there, nothing had been found. 

"Now what? How are we going to track ghosts?" Mira shook her head. Every manner had been tried out, tons of futile labour done. The tired searchers collapsed to sit into the snow, at the root of the same cliff where the evidence had been vacuum-cleaned away.

"My poor, poor... if she's dead, I... I have nothing, nothing any more..." Warp was beginning to freak out. So bravely he had been leading the rescue operation, but now, in a dead end state of affairs, his mind was not that strong any more. Well, intelligible it was what Zarah meant for him. He had once found his conscience because of her, starting to listen to it... and abandoned his evil marathons. He loved her like himself -and knowing his egoism, it meant that he loved her very much. Willing not to believe that his little, dear creature would be out of the blue the meal of some wild beasts, he repeated the no-no-no-no rigmarole while the other rangers heaved deep sighs of disappointment.

"So, is this it? IS THIS IT?" he slapped his forehead with his only palm. "IS THIS IT? She's gone? For forever?"

"Changes left? What have we not tried, yet?" a black ranger counted with his fingers.

"If we would have had some tracking animal, like a hound dog here, maybe that kind of thing would have been able to smell a trail... We have relied too much on technology..." Zurg responded.

A lonely idea lantern suddenly was switched on in Nova's head. She remembered that some months ago the LGMs had repaired XR. In the same work bundle, they had installed some new parts into the robotic ranger. Mostly they were completely useless, like the do-it-yourself perm equipment, the automatic stamp licker (no stamps were used any more because all mail was electronic), the supplemental egg-hatchery and so on. But dimly she recalled that there was also something else in this assortment. An electronic nose.

Jumping up from her spot, she bounced to the robot, giving a hassle out of her mouth, "Where is it? We need it now! You still got it?"

"What?" XR answered his brows up.

"The electro-smeller the LGM put into you! We need it now!"

XR's circuits began to buzz, when he rememberized that there was really such a part in him. "How come I didn't retain that? I must've got snow into my artificial intelligence chip!" Right then, he drew a widget away from his inners, something that resembled an oversized snout, made of metal. A new ray of light warmed the depressed group, even got Warp back to his beliefs. But also there was the bile about the fact that this thingamajig was brought into the sunlight so late.

"We could have tried to scan the paths earlier with this!"

"And not to wait until a fifth offer, through rotten supernovas..." Zora ground his teeth. 

"A-Okay! But now it's in condition! Let XR do the job, nothing can go wrong when XR's on the spot!" the robot hummed smugly and got some kind of odour captured into his device. "Just a sec... picosec... nanosec... momento, I'll analyse, what's in the air. Yeps... humidity, this reading indicates to human blood... a fragment of human sweat spiced with aloe vera -perfumed antiperspirant..."

"Oh how beautifully you describe my girl..." Warp pouted.

"The smell is coming from that way!" the nose-owner cut him short and pointed at the cliff above them.

"So the thing can climb. And who knows if it can take such long jumps as kangaroos or something..." the black ranger commented.

"We ought to use our jetpacks. XR, you shall lead and we rest shall fly after you!" Zurg blurted, ready for action.

So the chase began, again. On the fore, the mecha ranger scanned the rocks and cliffs. It signified that the something had really climbed up a rocky, steep wall. Occasionally there were indeed paw prints on the little projecting rocks.

"To infinity and..." Booster was on a brave mood, although he still was afraid of the Jedis... ahem, yetis.

"I'd say to stench and beyond", XR commented.

"Oh, are you gonna compose more pleasing rhymes about my wife?" Darkmatter would have slapped the android if he had could, but now left the intent behind. "Quasars, if I find her dead..."

The flight was over after half an hour. The group had approached a plain top of a ledge. In front of them, was an entrance of a cave. Like a black eye socket of a scull, it stared at them, contrasting with the whiteness of the snow. In addition, there were the trail of those paw prints... leading straight into it.

"We're going in", a comment was heard. "Put your weapons ready. We don't know what's in there."

"An army of snowmen, obviously..." XR started, but felt a heavy jolt on his helmet. Mira stood angry behind him and had given him a bunch to make an end to the sarcasms.

The cavity was very large and obviously also exceedingly long. Zurg switched a torch crystal on, while the sunlight withdrew. The troop had now entered the black mouth of the mountain. The repellent passage was formed by the forces of nature. Stalagmites decorated the dismal, grey walls, forming eerie shadows when the light floated by. The more the searchers went forwards, the warmer the tunnel began. Lastly the men and women took away their warming masks, only to encounter a very nauseous stink. A sweetish mixture of sweat, excrement and urea hovered in the air.

"Urgh! Something... or more than a something truly lives here!" Mira coughed.

"Yep. As I once visited a zoo when I was a kid, I remember that the animal cages smelled just like this", one space ranger pinched his nose.

"The tunnel is heading downwards", Booster made a notice.  

So the promenading in the silent blackness went on... until a gasp of terror came to chill the spines of the team. The beam of the flashlight had swept over one random corner in the everlasting stone corridor. There was lying a ripped male's space ranger suit, greyish bones lounging around it.

...to be continued...


	6. The lair of death

6. The Lair of Death

-------------

Somewhere in space...

A small personal-use shuttle glided in the ink-blackness of the eternal vacuum. The silence of the space was there as always, the absence of air molecules muffling every sound and hollo. As a spectre, the sole ship continued to search for its vague destination. Dark, dark...

In the cockpit of this vessel sat one famous space ranger, now as a culprit to a ship hijack, an unauthorized violent treatment of two Galactic Guard Unity members, in addition of an illicit egress from mental institution. The deeper he sunk, as the hours went on. Could the virtuous archetype of goodness have ever forecasted himself acting some day like this, without the screams of his conscious? Was there conscious in him any more? Of course it was there, like it is in-built to every sagacious being. But as everything else, it can be buried into a concrete cell, and that cube fastened with a cover of pure terillium. From there, through the sound reduction, it cannot squeal the words of righteousness. Unless its owner hammers the cell broken and frees it from its moral agony.

But what came to Buzz Lightyear, that dungeon of heart was already built, and the spirit of justice was gradually becoming its original inhabitant. It did not whirr any more its objections; merely Buzz now laughed self-assured at the facts how easily he had fled the loon asylum.

"Craters... what a hoot of security! Like escaping from a kindergarten", he chuckled to himself, while twisting the steering stick on the console. "As I now believe, even the nannies of that latter place have a better control over the toddlers."

The experienced ranger surely knew the ways, how to find an easy and fast means to skulk away. For some tens of minutes, he had been tiptoeing in the asylum corridors, occasionally hiding behind pot plants and so on, gone through all those regular hoaxes. Once it had been somewhat more challenging, when he had met a bunch of shift nurses. The situation was handled by loaning a mop from a cleaner robot's flivver. Assiduously he had been waxing the floor for a couple of minutes, whistling the day's pop hit. Yes, what a cliché, but it had still worked on those by-passers. After that had been the heading to the launch bay. The identity key cards he had stolen passed the locks in the perfect way. He had had a wide selection of ships to select. In the one vessel key card had been rights and codes for several different models of space gliders. And there was a nice assortment of those squatting in tidy lines on the landing parking deck. However, it would have aroused too much suspicion, if he had chosen just the shiniest and fastest model. No, something more modest was better. There was this personal shuttle of the other guard he had knocked unconscious. Ten, nine, eight... zero and blam. The hatches had opened, and the refugee had dived through the aerosphere of Planet Ur-Poremmi. Bye bye to the jail bars.

Now there was this evident problem, that Lightyear did not actually know where to go. Trade World was his aim, but there had been other alternatives spinning around his head. Like going to Planet Z... oh how attractive its red-violet atmosphere now felt, as Buzz cultivated the memories of his apprentice times.

"Ahh... that would have been the perfect place to begin a new life... I would have been an obedient submissive... enjoying then the luxury and benefits of my Father's fortune. But there's no going there. What is there any more? The re-habitation program of the Galactic Alliance... the violet planet swarms space rangers. And even if my Father some day would understand again that he maybe never should have left his brilliant life as Emperor, he wouldn't be capable to do anything to get his empire back. Blast, he's almost as rich as a new-born kid... what did he have when was brought to Capital Planet...? His Imperial Armour with some bric-a-brac in his pockets. He had a fortune bigger than Jupiter, but it's all gone... besides he's getting too old. Soon in the retirement age... blah." Buzz let the thoughts wander around in his brains. Unbelievable or not, but now he had asseverated to himself that he wanted his Father to turn Zurg again. And that he was literally jealous because of that money and grandeur Zora Lightyear had had. He was once promised to be there to share this all... _to rule the galaxy like Father and Son._ Those had been the Emperor's last words before falling into the long coma. So that it was what Zurg had wanted... not to kill Buzz, but share the dark side with him. And for Zora's current disappointment, he truly had succeeded in his efforts.

"But... no way going there. Trade World is not safe, but at least there are areas where the rangers are not sticking their noses into. And no one will know me there. With a good disguise, I'm just like everyone else." He skimmed his black full-beard confident with his fingers. "Great idea, Daddy. Now the scum who I once chased there, will not even get the point that it's their old nemesis now coming to search for help... although this may be a less good thing if they'll make a warrant of apprehension out of me... but, I'll find the ways, as always. Who's there to stop Buzz Lightyear? I'll get easily new identification papers and passport... ah, yes, in Killersville there are several of those who make high-quality fake ID cards. Why not to settle down over there? Hmm..."

Buzz let the ideas fly furthermore. There would be still a long way to the notorious destination. How keenly he would try to find a fast wormhole, it would still take an epoch...

"Hm-hm-hm. Even so it won't do much, if I just settle down, no... I have to have some job..." he continued his warped conceptions, "I truly wish I could continue the ways you once taught me, Father... before you decided to deceive me and close me up into that mindless place. Craters, what do I have to do to testify that I have nothing wrong in my head?" he cursed annoyed, so that nearly smoke was coming from his ears. A powerful fist hit the console in crossness. "I will verify that! I will show everyone that Buzz Lightyear is well, sound and better than ever has been! Even if I would have to conquer the Galactic Alliance to prove that!"

All of sudden, an insane gleam was switched on in Lightyear's eyes. It was the burn of greed, rage, the accursed voodoo of the dark side. His mind abysses told him to release his anger, to listen to the temptations of voracity...

"That's it!" he grinned to himself like a lottery winner, "That's it! That's the best proof ever! I will become powerful and I'll show everyone what is the true Buzz Lightyear! Even if it means to get the Alliance into my hands! And I if who knows how to do that... once it would have been my Father's... and I was there to help him, then! _I was the most important link in getting it!_"

Examining those associations and hollers of avidity confirmed that there was a new Zurg spawning inside him.

"I will become the most powerful lord in the Galaxy ever! _Lord Zenith_... Then no one is laughing at me, any more, or imprisoning me!" The hectic conflagration only increased in his pupils. "I shall become powerful! Take the stupid Alliance into my own control, whose out-of-mind leader persons decided to treat me like this! I will take revenge on this! And what comes to my Father... I don't hate him, I respect him like a Son has to. But he has stepped on the wrong trail with his doings, and that's because of the brainwashing of those Alliance supporters..."

The manic ex-ranger scratched his back of the neck, pondering hard. "Dad, you should understand to get back to it what you were. And I'll help you do that. I'll help you get back, so that you can teach me all the things you swore, when you still had power. And so we can rule the Galaxy like Father and Son, as you promised..."

In his megalomaniac pomposity, Buzz began to lose the sense of time. All of sudden he fancied himself almighty, letting the images of the fleeing sink into the river of forgotten tales. He rubbed smugly his fingers together, while trying to form some kind of dark aura to float around his head.

"I have been young and naïve this far, but now begin finally to grasp my true place in this Galaxy. I will have glory, to infinity and beyond!"

Zurg-like raucous laughter filled the cockpit after his sentence. The Captain had closed the inner archway of the dark side behind him. 

-----------

----Some hours later (local time) on Ur-Poremmi------

One dizzy guard gradually got the curtain of haze away from the front of his eyes. He had awakened to feel a scorching ache in his jaws. The landscapes were still going merry-go-round in his vision, but with his sharp brain cells, he comprehended what had happened. The jail room was empty, only his work mate Viemäri lolling indolent beside him. And... the standard resident, Buzz Lightyear was gone.

Scrambling wearisomely up, Pokasaha shook the other victim. "Wake up, darn it, we've been fooled! The prisoner is not here!"

"Uhh... my head..." the other man mourned and blinked his eyes. "Uh... y-you go on to make a drill... I..." Chafing his forehead for a couple of seconds, it indicated that Viemäri was hit very badly. His mind blackened out again, forcing him to lie low.

"Y... You wait here. I'll call the doctor, maybe you have a concussion", the better-conditioned alien sighed and tried to bolt into the corridor. But of course the door was locked, so there would have been needed Tangean skills to break out. Therefore, it was the fist and knuckle symphony that soon echoed in the aisle outside the cabin, of course calling attention to examine what was wrong. With the aid of the departmental head, the metal gateway was however quite soon freed from its locks, and the half-stupefied custodians brought into the night light.

Of course, for the mental institution it was a mere shock to hear the news. The place was known from its strict security, but in this case, it had failed. The very first thing to do was to snuff every corner and mouse-hole in the building itself, if the refugee would possibly still hide there. Nevertheless... when a report about a missing ship came to the ears of the medical superintendent, no use was there any longer to look under the carpets of the quarters. Star Command would have to take care of this issue from this on. With sweating hands the chief dialled Commander Nebula's number, in order to begin a vid-phone session. How could he ever explain this all to the austere old ranger...?

-----------------

The sallow shimmer of Zora's crystal torch was indeed the first beam to reveal the horrid secrets. In the bitch-black cave stood the flabbergasted team of rescuers. The assembly hall of spooks had been sculptured during millennia, by the forces of nature. The darkness of the stone niches ate the weak light, giving thus only a puny fraction of the cavity available for the eyes. In addition of Zurg's torch, there was the thin shimmer of the space ranger uniforms' phosphorescence, as a greenish glow. However, where the main ray was pointed at was a very disgusting and desolate view. Indeed there were the remains of the one once so brave space ranger, but also vastly something else. Behind the body widened a refuse heap of some kind. It was obviously formed during several years, since it seemed to continue and continue towards the shadows, towards the distances of the lair. It consisted only of bones, all kinds of bones that the planet could bear on its surface. The by-brushing light met the empty eye sockets of hundreds of divergent sculls, letting their grinning bare teeth visible for the spectators. The carcass of the space ranger was literally only a top of an iceberg... or a bone berg, as someone might describe it. It was thrown there as the topmost, or the foremost of it all, as the decoration of the slowly mouldering macabre exhibition.

The rescue team could not get a yelp out of their speaking organs for a while. On the other hand, one space ranger sunk onto the ground on his knees, puking all the remains of his latest meal. This however helped the others startle up from their emotional shock. Zurg snapped his fingers and Booster helped up the man, who had gotten into the seizuring claws of sudden stomach sickness. And Zora's face remained cool but severe. He, the former Evil Emperor, was not unfamiliar with scenery like this. Wasn't he the one who had once upon a time slaughtered innocent solar system habitants for his darkest joy? So, getting acquainted with half-rotten carrion was not a noveau thing for him to encounter.

"I deeply wonder where we have come into", he broke the silence with his hollow voice.

Shaking her head in bereavement, Mira noted, "May this ranger rest in peace... which one of those he was, then. But what I wonder is, that how can he be here, since it's been a long time when the last poor guard vanished... we have approached on our way since that..."

"Well, thundering neutrinos, who knows what these cursed night bats are! I wouldn't wonder if they could run the journey-around-the-Capital-Planet passage in a couple of minutes. The only luck we have that they assumingly can't fly like some big blowflies!" Warp snapped angrily. His heart was to burst. Of course he had seen similar histories in his life as Zurg, but this one concerned the only person he had ever loved. Understanding that Zarah could be lying there, among those gnawed skeletons, was the end-of-the-world matter for him.

"Those all are not any alien beings, but animals..." a comment was heard, which was responded with the feedback that maybe the planet was not as dead as it looked like. Who knew, perhaps in the cavity structures such as this, there were all kinds of creatures creeping and lurking.

But Warp became testier and testier when being forced to hear only some specimen analysis. He wanted action and wanted it fast.

"What's gotten into you? We ain't here to hear a lecture about zoology! I want my poor Zarah back into my arms!" Gulping he continued, "And if... someone spots a ripped silver-black space suit, I..." He could not finish his sentence, but was left to cough the slime that had risen up from his lungs, caused by the crushing sentiment.

 The task was not facile to perform. As it had indicated, the cavern was immense. The berth the team was now stirring in was like a large lobby, from where forked dozens of tunnels to diverse directions. All this stone majesty was bathing in the blackest cloaks, breathing the drafts of obscure hazards. However, XR's mechanical nose came in need, again. It luckily was able to distinguish Choi's characteristic aroma molecule structure. To be capable of to do the leading better, the robot ranger also assisted by illuminating the trail with an efficient floodlight.

 What no one had come to sense was that in the shades, something was moving. From behind the rocks and stone corners, the rangers and their supporters were being inspected. Hostile, piercing eyes recorded every external motion. Behind one large stalagmite could be seen these gleaming organs of sight that were dimly visible as two blue spots. Soon beside them was another pair of those. And like little flambeaus, similar specks were little by little switched on in the murkiness... Following the puny group of rescuers, the eyes began to budge, approaching silently their potential quarries behind their backs.

Mira was the one who had the most nauseous feeling that she was being stared. But every time she glanced over her shoulder, there was nothing to be seen but the sombre desolateness. The searchers had not advanced but a few tens of metres.

"Does anyone else feel that we're being watched?" she whispered nervously.

"Indeed... I have the strangest itch in my spine... as a presence of the dark side would be near..." Zurg fingered his chin beard, while stepping forwards.

_"Thump!"___

"Shht! Anyone heard that?" Mira out of the blue froze.

"I didn't hear anything", the black ranger commented, getting a couple of agreements from the others.

"Ah... eh, maybe it was just Booster's footstep..." she chuckled jittery back.

The next voice was Warp's screech. XR's flashlight had passed by a small stone chamber at the left. And there, from the ceiling was hanging something. The robot pointed again his illumination equipment over there, making Darkmatter yell even more. There was indeed lopping something, actually several larger clod-like objects. But what the jumpy alien had distinguished, were the features of his wife.

"ZARAH!" he yelled manically and rushed into the cell. Gasping air with terror he encountered the second nightmare. The light revealed that there were five lumps, dangling upside down from the patchy ceiling. They were like glued over there; in addition that thick slime-like jelly covered them partly. One of them was the missing woman... and the rest seemed to be space rangers and one animal, or what was left of them. The female was still entire, but the rest... some had their upper bodies completely missing, some were without their head and arms. They had already faced their destinies as being half-eaten by the beasts that had captured them. The persons, who had followed Warp, got their hackles in the air, as well as the main alien.

"ZARAH! My goodness, Zarah, what have they done to you?" he shouted and jumped right at the woman. Like everyone else, she was half-buried into the ectoplasm, clinging there head towards the floor. Wiping his watery eyes, Warp turned his biotic arm into a cutting tool and began to fight against the gluey mucus. Of course he had to get her loose from the arresting material, although he did not even know was she alive at all.

_"Thump!"___

Mira with her sensitive ears turned about in a flash.

"You must've heard that!" she gasped.

"W-we sure did and it wasn't Booster!" XR's teeth clattered with fear.

_"Thump!"___

Now the whole team, even Darkmatter was swung to leer behind the backs.

"Shuhs! There is something hiding in there! Get your lasers ready!" Zurg whispered gravely.

Indeed, there it was, the first pair of those electric blue eyes in sight. It was peering the aghast cave invaders from behind a stalagmite formation. And the eyes were high up there, a bestial expression in them.

However, the first attack did not come from the middle, but from sideways. Mutely, like a snake, a blue-regard monster crept out of a side-tunnel, which was right beside the stone chamber. The rescue team almost jumped into the skies when hearing Booster's agitated yell. He had just had the blink-time to catch the thud-like sound coming from behind him. When he had turned his head over his shoulder, there was standing this big, hairy creature, almost as tall as he was. It grinned to him with its needle-sharp teeth, inspecting him with those brutal, soulless eyes. In the sombreness was distinguished this robust animal, walking with two legs, covered with bluish fur. It raised its two remaining limbs, left that flop-like voice from its mouth and lunged.

This was the start of a real invasion. The gorgons had formed an ambush, by multiplying soundlessly. Now they were swarming from every direction, seemingly having predominance over the diminutive alien group. They indeed did not growl or let any roaring voices, but only those soft thumps as their war whoop. Animals they were, not classified as intelligent beings, but indeed not the most stupid fauna the universe could carry on its solar systems. They could use hunting tactics.

 In a couple of tens of seconds, the cave hall had turned into a dark inferno. The rangers lasered the yetis, which in turn shifted skilfully the beams with their rapid reflexes. And if the burning laser hit them, they did not give up easily, moreover would fight until the last inhale. In the almost sackcloth-sable lair of death, it was not even easy to determine where the next assault would be coming from. The whole qualmish theatre resembled like a giant light show, when the beams of optically pumped molecules created their red, green and other monochromatic nuances. The jangle was deafening, the pain cries and warning shouts of the rangers and others echoing back from the rock walls. In the middle of this all, Warp had continued to saw Zarah loose from the tacky mess that was imprisoning her. He attempted to call her by name, but in vain. The girl did not answer, only hung there. The glue material sat strong around her legs. But gradually it began to give in, however being a very slow process. Warp would have been needed to help the rest of the fighters, but he was now the one who demanded covering. Booster and XR worked as a barricade in front of the 'meat cabin' door, at least successfully keeping the predators away.

Zurg on the other hand had fallen into a very nasty situation. He could not defend himself anyhow, but tried to hide behind the backs of some other combating men. But soon a yeti without labour spotted him. Whatever was to follow, but that Lightyear was desperately fleeing this creature, which was fast as a jet car compared with him. Panting and sweating the old man ran away towards the bone heap, the light getting weaker and weaker in front of him. And was it even easy to see anything in there, since the high cave ate every flash? Next the creature lunged at him with its full force. Zurg ducked, threw a couple of somersaults and was again on his legs. But fast as a cheetah the yeti was, jumping to the man and grapping him high in the air. Zurg fought back by kicking the beast and with those movements got the predator to throw him several metres towards the skeleton pile. Flashing its needle teeth, it then began to approach its booty.

Zora was now lying on his back in the middle of the carcasses. Luckily he had not lost his conscious, but cried now for help, for the same time searching for some kind of things to throw towards the monster. Unfortunately the rest of the rangers were very busy with the menace army, in addition that the objects the elder man tossed towards the spook were like pulp hitting it.

"Quasars... Help me, darn it, HELP!" he hollered and fumbled the bone pile with his hands, while retiring towards the back wall in a half-sitting position. And... the sharp teeth in front of him continued their abominable grin.

"We're coming, till we get rid of these!" some honk answered.

"No, I need help NOW!"

Abruptly Zurg felt something more firm and hard under his glove. By picking it up, he understood the staff-like thing being some kind of metal widget. Who knew how long it had been lying there, at the rear end of the catacomb, but in any case, now it was in his fingers. Obviously someone of the eaten had owned it. At first the Emperor had the urge to dart the pest with it, but came to push a rusty button on it with his thumb. In a flash, a blue beam of light erected from the stick-like thing, making his eyes blinded for a nanosecond. Also the creature was infatuated by it. As recovering faster from his handicap, Zurg had the era to grasp what the gadget was and be delighed.

"Quasars! A lightsabre! I have not seen these things in tens of years!" he merely whooped, before the beast in front of him faced its end. The laser burned a hole in the middle of it, letting it fall in the middle of its gorged preys. And so Zora got onto his feet, running to help the hard-combating men and women.

As if the universe would have once granted some luck, the miserable-looking fight against the monsters step by step had turned upside down. One factor was that Zurg had now participated the tumult, using skilfully his odd contraption. Tens of those monsters had been curbed by the fists of death, but luckily no one of the rangers had suffered that fate, yet. The lesions were many, though. Warp had finally sawed his wife off the ceiling, trying now to get rid of the gum substance, at that instant. The transparent, elastic matter issued from special glands in those yetis' mouths. With that mess they partly kept the 'food' fresh and attached the booties to their preserving places.

 After an undetermined time, the combat turned to victory for the rescue team. Obviously comprehending, that trying to tilt those laser-users only would lead to their own destruction, the hairy beats by and by started to retreat. The few last ones of the cave colony that still stood on their legs, slinked fast into the black corridors, accompanied by a whimpering sound. However, although the team could have rested in the triumph area for some minutes, every one wanted to get out of that grimy Hades and promptly.   

 Thus, at the head of the warriors, Warp ran out of the den of dead. As being sure about the fact that there would be no more of those detestable monsters coming to lunge him, he put the girl down onto the ground. Only now, in the sunlight, he was able to see, in what kind of condition Zarah truly was. Her space suit was torn, giving thus freeness for the teeth of frost to bite her. Her skin was cold-bluish, lips merely blue-purple. Darkmatter, who carefully kept her upper body resting on his better arm, could not spot many signs of life in this little, weakened creature.

"Za? Can you hear me?" he panted in terror and tried to repair in panic her damaged costume, for to give her at least some warmth. No answering syllable was there to be audible. The woman just laid there, mouth half-open, some hoar and yeti-ectoplasm gathered to decorate her messy hair.

Hot water filled the blue alien's tear ducts, making him sneeze with a twisted expression on his face. He lifted her more up, shouting merely insanely, "Wake up! Now!"

Some others had also appeared into the sunlight. All of the rescuers had not gotten back from the black hell yet, but at least Mira now in a flash approached Warp and crouched beside him. The man was on the state, that he slapped Zarah's cheeks in order to find a life-sign in her. "No! NO! You won't leave me, now! Once I got you out of that grotto you must be alive! Wake up, now!"

Nova took a hold of his arm and asked him to stop the senseless shaking of the woman. The big alien cried like a child, which was an odd scene to the Tangean. Hopelessly the man attempted to blow life into the girl who seemed to have gone beyond the border. And he did not eavesdrop to the Princess but furthermore screeched his litany, "You've made it before! You didn't leave me when I for the first time took the care of you and you won't do it now! YOU HEAR ME, ZARAH? WAKE UP, darn it!" So he kept on bawling until a pair of forceful hands grapped his shoulders backwards, and Zurg's hoarse voice commanded him to cut it out.

"You shall stop that now! The hornet ranger... ahem... Ranger XR, you come here, immediately and check out the condition of this lady!"

The android appeared from behind him and drew a life-sign scanner forth. For a couple of seconds, a graveyard silence filled the ledge. But a whoop of joy was to continue, when it indicated that the mecha had found a weak heart beat still supporting life in the woman's body.  Easy it was also to determine with his doctor doodah that Zarah was suffering from severe hypothermia. And... Zurg had to keep a hold again of Warp, who would have probably crushed the girl into his arms because of this sudden happiness.

"Quasars, we shall take her back to the camp as fast as we can, now. She needs to be put into something warm and given proper medication", the Emperor pointed out. For the while, XR had taken another implement from his inner storage. For this kind of occasions, there was the electro-warming fibre blanket. It had the change now to play a life-safer, when wrapped around Choi to protect her from the outside chillness. Darkmatter, who had somewhat got his brain-pressure back, took a small bottle of whisky out of his pocket. Bringing it to Zarah's lips, he let two cork-measures of it flow into her throat. Abruptly this caused the girl begin to cough, which testified that there still was life colonizing her ruined body. Gently Warp took her into his arms, pushed his wing-releasing button and activated his jetpack. Now there was the swift fly to the encampment.

The fiend cave and its now lessened habitants would possibly not cause any more harm to the travellers. Still the plasma fence was repaired and detailed mustered that there was none kind of short circuits or wrong kinds of ion capacitors to provoke more electric errors. Deep desolation of course darkened the atmosphere, after it was declared what had been the last experiences of the long-gone space rangers. They would have the warren of fatality now as their final crypt.

 The rescue rangers flitted back to the marquees, most of them forced to have at least some treatment because of bruises and wounds. It indicated that no one was that severely injured, that because of it the expedition would have been obliged to be cancelled completely. Now, for all that, everyone settled down to have well-earned rest and leisure for the couple of the following days.

 Zarah therefore by degrees got his consciousness back. She was kept in the tent of the camp doctor, wrapped in several hot-fibre blankets. She was indeed suffering from an arduous hypothermia; apart from that some frostbites had ruined her already bruised and ill-treated body. Notwithstanding, the advanced medicine and technology provided means that made the recovery faster. Her heart did beat in normal rhythm; her body heat was around 309 Kelvins. Not very several words were heard from her lips, but at least those few assured, that she would get her strength back. 

Warp had been a real nuisance in the doctoring tent all the time when Zarah was being warded, her occasional wounds being bandaged and so on. Gnawing the nails of his flesh hand, he would have wanted to do every operation by himself and give a piece of string theory to the immanence of the professional. Yet the medical officer had to give up to his molestation towards the night. Choi was then already in the condition, that she could produce some syllables, but lied weak with closed eyes on the bed.

"I will take her now with me! Quasars and their crackers, I won't let you keep her overnight over here!" Darkmatter nearly yelled to the head-shaking medicine man.

"I still deeply resist this! Now look at her, she needs to be kept warm and..." was the opposing response.

"Yea, yea, don't I know how to _keep her warm_? I SURELY know how to keep her warm! No one has to teach me that!"

"Would you listen to me, she is infirm and..."

"She's going now and flying away from here. Dratted craters, after today's show I won't let her outta my sight ever any more! Neither now!" he cursed and picked up the girl into his arms. The medical officer was thrown into the futile opposition as the blue alien was deaf to his words. Grapping a pile of blankets with him, he took Zarah and headed to his tent, to keep her warm and declare his love to her.

Darkmatter was not there to hear the very late news transmission that came from Star Command HQ. The frustrated and disappointed Commander Nebula was on the other side of the ether, narrating that Buzz Lightyear had fled the mental asylum.    

...to be continued...


	7. The raise of a new dark lord

Zarah woke up to a very nauseous feeling. Sweat merely streamed along her back of the neck. It was as if she would have been in some kind of kiln, it was so hot, so tormenting hot. After sweeping the gauze of soporific away from her vision, she gave a try to move around. In vain. And the reason for this all was that she was wrapped at least into ten warming blankets, in addition that she was buried somewhere invisible into the hug of Warp, who was still in the land of dreams. His metal arm was there to arrest her movements more than ever.

But the heat was not the only factor there was to create the torture. Her every body part was hurting. The previous day she had been given quite a portion of painkillers, but now their influence had gone with the blizzard. And her mind was one big twister. What had actually happened? There was the desultory recollection of her going to get water... and then all black. Only some shorthanded nightmare-like flashes, some kind of blue spots hovering around her... some soft voices, like thuds of molten snow falling down from a roof... coldness... and now the pain, in addition of Darkmatter's heavy heart beats and exhales reaching her ears.

"Uhh... W-Warp... will you turn over a bit, it's too warm here..." she produced a raucous hack. Then there was the astonishing where that sore throat had come from. And her mate only continued his snores, almost embracing her even more tightly.

"Warp..." she couched again, this time being granted with results. The male blinked his eyes and fastened his regard to the little woman.

"Zarah! My babe li'l sweet tiny Za!" he almost yelled, starting to wrap the blankets more firmly around her. "You li'l thingie are all cold!" And her resisting sentence was muffled by a long, hard kiss on her lips.

"Mpfff... Waff--mmff Wamff..." she tried to mumble in his stormy clutch. The resists after some minutes made Darkmatter loose her a bit.

"W-What is it, babe?" he whispered, looking her straight into her weary eyes.

"Uh... I'm suffocating to this blanket pile..." she moaned. "W-What has happened...? Why am I..."

Getting now some sense into himself, Warp took some heating coatings off her. When he was ready to take her back into his enfold, he came across with the ache she experienced. Tenderly he put her into a half-sitting position, to rest against his side.

"W-what happened...?" she inquired again.

With an awkward expression on his face, the big alien quietly summarised the horrid occurrences. Gradually Choi began to reflect more details, like the hysterious fear she had had the other day, yesterday's bandaging in the tent... and something that had happened in the previous night. For that moment, Warp was smoothing her locks, whispering softly into her ear, "It was better for you that you never saw the things around you... It was better for you to be unconscious in that cave. You wouldn't have recovered from that shock, li'l babe... But now... I won't let you anywhere alone any more", his husky voice turned severe, "Wherever you'd go, I'll keep my eye on you. I won't let anything like this happen any more, never! Do you understand, you'll wake me up even in the middle of the night, if you want to go to take a snack or water. Your Master won't allow things like this any more. I don't wanna lose you..." After giving her then some mild kisses on her neck, he assured once more, "Do you understand what kind of horror this has been to me?"

"I... I'm sorry... I..." she sighed back, being not able to find the right words.

"No... it wasn't your fault..." he admitted, before she cut him short.

"W-Warp? L-Last night, did you... d-did we... I remember that you..." she reached the expression of his eyes a bit worried.

A heavy, a bit solemn exhale came from his side. "I... I know I maybe shouldn't have... b-but... you..." shaking his head he nodded, "I shouldn't have done that, because of you being so weak and all... I'm sorry."

She therefore pressed her cheek against his shirt, whispering back, "No, don't be sorry." Giving a light smile as the conclusion, he understood that he had done nothing wrong, just his onus as her loving and tender Master.

"Now... you'll just rest. I'll do the rest", he resolved and put her back to lie under the quilts.

Warp did not withdraw from Zarah when the hours went by, but got a ranger to bring the food and other things straight into his tent. Choi was in such a condition that the journey would not be continued still in days. She was in the need of a lot of rest, medication and someone to soothe the post-traumatic images that rolled as fragmented collections in her synapses. He gave furthermore a piece of neutron star to the scolds of the doctor, who wanted the girl to be brought into the med tent. But despite the lucky saving, bitterness filled Darkmatter's mind, when Zurg came to groan the last night's news.

Rolling his eyes, Warp could nothing but snort, "Your sonny has gone finally off his rocket or how would I nicely express it. He has asteroids and space trash spinning around his head. Can't he at all understand what the best is for him?"

"It is the dark side. It has taken the harnesses, now. But I shall not accept that. I shall find the cure for him and he shall turn to what he once was", Zora glared at his palms, sitting somehow lopsided in the corner of the marquee.

"Very well, then. But shouldn't those folks in Star Command start to track him?"

"I have given the orders to do that. And so has Commander Nebula agreed with my supreme intelligence. They have found already some energy traces that were left from his stolen ship."

"So, where's this Mr. Rebel Boy gonna go?" Warp looked at the Emperor his head atilt.

"Trade World, most possibly." 

-----------

Buzz Lightyear stood in the airy, cool drizzle of the Trade World night. A chilling wind whipped the otherwise so feathery raindrops against his face. The winter was gradually approaching this planet. Shivering in the queasy feeling of cold, he buttoned his stolen blue guard jacket more tightly and rose up the collars to protect his cheeks. He was standing on the sand yard of some abandoned factory halls -a place he actually knew quite well. In these same empty, hollow buildings he had once fought against Zurg's hornets, trying to 'save' Zarah G'Deneb from the clutches of the arch-enemy Darkmatter.

"Blast this weather..." he murmured and blew some warm air into his hands, rubbing them then together. "I can't possibly find a better hiding place for that ship... this is not the best one, but has to work, now."

The pilfered old-model speeded crouched beside some rusty barrels, in the dark shade of a half-collapsed guard hut. Nevertheless, who was very well able to compare there what was shadow and what was light since the large area was almost completely without illumination? Buzz had only a small laser torch in his hand to make his path clearer. The stars above there somewhere were in the arms of the massive rain clouds that waited for to fray upon the citizens. Some distant glow coming from the habitation gleamed around the black grounds. Puffing his last snort to the vessel, Lightyear decided to take a hike, and with long steps traipsed along the sand way. Killersville was his favourite destination, now.

"They'll send soon rangers after me. It can't be kept long in secret that I've fled their very secure asylum..." he thought while passing by some empty boxes. "By tracking the energy traces of that ship they'll retrieve me here... but I believe that's the edge. Killersville is prohibited area for space rangers, heh heh... or at least has been this far."

Buzz on the other hand, knew this disreputable place quite well. He had always been the person, who was able to break the certain rules of Star Command. So, precisely nothing had been there to oppose him, if he had wanted to invade the worst nooks of Trade World, being on the heels of some space scum. He had snuffed around almost every block here, being aware of the smugglers, con artists and counterfeiters. And someone of those he would need to meet, now. There was the lack of a sleeping place, more disguising clothes, food and the new identity. The name Buzz Lightyear would be buried somewhere in the depths of six feet. The Captain played with the idea, what would be the letters of his noveau signature.

"Hmm... Lightyear is way too sappy. Darkyear? Nah, let's just leave that prefix 'dark' away, brings too much association to certain displeasing persons... Hmh... Zenith... the name my Father once gave me... it tickles my nerves even more and more. Zenith... I'll become _Zenith_. Zenith uhm... I need a surname. Something that has a deep, glorious echo in it. What do I know about exotic names? Spock, Klingon, Goa'uld... no. Callisto, Io, Ganymede... no, my Mother was Ganymede. Purkkisoppa, Kaalikeitto, Kampela... no, horrible. Ahem... Deimos? That was one of the satellites of Mars. Yes... that sounds perfect. Zenith Deimos. No, _Lord_ Zenith Deimos. Hehehe..."

Gradually Buzz began to catch up with his destination. His taps reached soon the backstreets of one gambler casino block, which was the gate to Killersville. The pulsating life of this galactic ghetto was swarming around him. The blaring holo-advertisements changing their tasteless figures on the roofs and walls of the buildings cast their screaming neon lights above the alien turmoil. The wet avenues reflected back the blinking, irritating rays of them. The row on the streets was deafening, as hundreds of different-race aliens wandered around, jostling each other to get forwards, selling illegal ware straight from their pockets, and occasionally fist-fighting in the gateways. A cool and indifferent expression on his face, Buzz swept his way through the underworld hullabaloo, which mainly resembled a chaotic dream. He guarded strictly his pockets, for he knew that even the holes in them could be someone else's fortune, soon. And not many time-sequences passed, after he felt a light jerk on his jacket hem. Quickly as a past-flying neutrino shower, he snatched the hand that was fumbling 'his' ownings. Beside him, as a captured creature, was a snake-looking, uneasily whining small robber.

"Uh... sir... I just saw a spot on your sleeve and was gonna wipe it clean..." the alien smirked.

Buzz frowned at him from under his black brows. "You don't know with whom you're dealing with. Don't ever try to pick the mighty Lord Zenith's pockets!"

The serpent was going to utter something, but soon was flying in a semi-circle in the air, landing to a nearby trashcan after his short passage. This had been Lightyear's not-so-nice response to him before he was already on his way, towards the murkier parts of this planet.

"Craters, I need to find a place to stay!" a frustrated curse was spat out of Buzz' mouth. He was by and by becoming tired to his futile stroll. "A couple of months pass and they change everything!" He had to admit that he was somewhat lost. From his last visit (as a space ranger), he had recalled there being somewhat a more secure motel in the middle of this district, called "The Pulsar". But in the place of that penthouse were now only ruins, as if a plasma bomb would have hit it. Black, charred concrete pillars and some iron bars were sticking out of the collapsed remains, like some untidy fangs. Therefore, the Captain was obliged to continue his way, hunger already croaking in his stomach.

"Alright. We try straight 'The Black Hole'. It's not a convenient place, but at least I'll get supper."

The drizzle had unexpectedly turned to heavier drops. The heavens shot the city with icy missiles from the cloud mass. The rain drummed the roofs in a melancholic symphony, the howl of the wind playing a flute solo. The hectic life on the alleys however did not die to this, the characteristic medley only kept on going. The mental hospital refugee turned to a tiny, empty-looking lane, to make a shortcut to this one bar he had previously thought. This rather long and steeply between two slum houses delineated redbrick street worked as a sort of a wind-tunnel, so that all the wet buckets coming from up there, got splashed right on Buzz's face. Swearing crackling syllables, he attempted to push his head into the light blouse. He did not notice a small shadow that was coming straight towards him. The wee being, carrying a large box, collided with the sturdy man, making them both fall into the puddles onto their hinterlands.

Getting his senses back after the bump, Lightyear spotted himself sitting in a mud hole, completely soaked. The accident causer was in front of him, as well lost, his box now open and its inners scattered to bathe in the messy water. The fire of frenzy made now the eyes of the Captain almost red. He got quickly up from the ground and was to collar the unlucky one. But a scared voice, honouring in it, got him to cancel his threat.

"I...Is that _you_? Sir... _Sir Lord Zenith_?" the foam-extinguisher-sized alien almost bowed.

Buzz narrowed his eyes a couple of times. That voice? That voice calling him with the name almost no one in the Galaxy yet knew? What was this all about?

Through the haze he then suddenly recognized what was the pint-sized object cringing there. It was one representative of that grub race that had worked on Planet Z. What the astro-turf was it doing in Trade World? Puzzled he bent himself lower to leer at this obviously former lackey of Zurg.

"You know me?" he raised his brows.

"Uh, sure, your Highness! Of course I know Lord Zenith when I meet him! Of course your Highness won't remember me, but I was once serving your breakfast when you still lived in our home", the beetle answered.

Lightyear had forgotten his indignation because of being so surprised. "But... what are you doing here? Shouldn't you live in Zeta Quadrant?"

The insect wiped a pungent tear away from his eye. "Oh, home sweet home... if there only was a home. The men from Star Command came, tore down our homes and factories. Then they started to put up fast camps for us, and build new buildings, ordering us to work on the new-ploughed fields. The brains were sent to different planets to fill some tasks over there..." he kept a pause and sighed, "Many of us got used to their new posts and those green-white chalk houses that were put up over the ruins... many of us started to serve Star Command. But not of us all. We miss the Empire, although our Dark Lord was not always on good mood and was not always treating us the best way. So... some of us fled Planet Z and came here, to begin a new life..."

Buzz listened to this all in disbelief. Was there a grub colony living somewhere in Killersville? That would be too good to be true. But before he was able to throw in a comment, the creature continued his flood, "...We have settled here down, waiting for something to happen. We miss truly our deceased Lord... as I said, he was not always kind, but... and in secret, we have waited for _you_ to return."

Those declarations broke Zenith's confusion, giving a boost to his glory-thirsting dreams to soar towards the stratospheres. So, he was not forgotten as the apprentice of Zurg? There were still persons in this universe that wanted the Z Empire to raise its claws again? Buzz' brains were now either floating in the pond of insanity or the dark side, it was not very clear for no one. However, he stood up from the ground, taking a menacing pose.

"Yes! Lord Zenith has come here, to dig up the lost kudos of the fallen Empire! And I'll declare it out now. I am _the_ _Son of Zurg,_ and the only and legitimate heir of his throne!" a megalomaniac grin spread across his face, his pupils reducing to tiny black spots.

The insect on the ground level shrunk back some gaits after hearing that chest-tone manifesto. His little limbs were shaking with fear and awe. No one had ever could have even imagined that the Emperor had scions, nor that Lord Zenith would turn out to be that one.

"S-Sir!" the insect joggled. 

"Yes! And you, you'll lead your new Master to your home. I have come to gather you servants to serve me."

After that verdict, the humbled lackey got his feet fast, starting to lead the way to the block where his fellows lodged. Behind him, not caring any more about the rain, Buzz took long traipses, even stepping harder on purpose to make an image of might. If he had had a Zurgean teeth-plate helmet on, one could have been able to receive a similar gloat from him as his Father had once expressed on his best moments of evil joy.

"This was way much easier than I thought. I'll get a new home, servants and money in no time. These mindless dust-swallowers will treat me like some divine being. Mwa ha ha. But what comes to my Father, I will not tell them yet that he is alive. They can merit nothing from that knowledge, yet. It's enough, that they have a new Master."

After some blocks and corners, the diligent henchman had brought Buzz into the inner courtyard of a miry skyscraper. In every little window, there were different-coloured lights on, twinkling like pale stars through the foggy water tears. Silent voices echoed from here and there, telling that the colony was full of life. Indeed, there were so on 300 of those beetles living in this sole building. Meekly the guide held a door open to Lightyear, when he stepped into the staircase. The grubs that were for the moment climbing up and down the stairs stopped their doings and were just left to gawp the incomer. As Buzz majestically took steps up, a low hum of whispers filled the surroundings. Someone had identified the odd, robust male. Smugly Zenith slid his hand along the wooden handrail, feeling the warmth of it after the freezing night out there. He let his nostrils sense the soft odour of various foods that floated in the homey air. The result was that the crow-caws in his stomach increased.

"You'll prepare your master warm clothes, a bath and a dinner", he gave orders to his votary, while still climbing up. There was no functioning elevator in this penthouse, and therefore it took quite strong efforts to get to the upper floors.

Some hours more, and the Captain was lying in a hot tub, relaxing and letting the heat fill his muscles. After this, there would be a tasty meal waiting for him, at least what he had heard from the residents of this notch. In addition, assessed by him, there were some diligent grub ladies sewing him new clothes. Fast as they were, the garments would be fresh for him after he would have finished his sauna. Some moments more and he dived up from the water, wrapped the towel around him and stepped then into the dressing room. There, on a wooden chair, was folded a pile of qualities. Whilst he lifted the moist suit confident up, he noticed the singlet being a burgundy-red silk robe. Over it, he dressed another layer, an opalescent vest-like robe made from heavy black velvet, which left the sleeves and bodice of the red lower garment visible. All this fancy was gathered to be tight on the hipline, with a red, large silk belt.

From the large mirror of the chamber, Buzz now evaluated himself and his new appearance. It was festive, merely awe-inspiring. Although he was short for a grown-up man, this costume made him full of domination, so that this little height detail was unimportant. He danced a couple of swirls on the floor, cackling to his reflection. His blue-shiny black hair and beard were in the perfect harmony with the velvet, the crimson red contrasting with his sapphire blue eyes.

A large group of insects was waiting for their new Master behind the dressing room door, in a large hall. Suddenly the entrance creaked open, and in the soft-dark light of a red lamp crystal, stood Buzz Lightyear, in his complete novel varnish. Everyone bowed in obeisance, as his words reached the grub ears.

"Lord Zenith, _the_ _Son of Zurg,_ has returned! He has returned to continue the Dynasty of the Zurgean Empire, you all as his loyal humbles!"


	8. Schemes

---------------------

The life on Isgurda gradually turned back to its normal snowy grooves. Zarah was recovering from her weakness quite fast, thanks to the excellent medications and rest. One problem there was still concerning her; the Xanedian space suit she had worn was now like gnawed by mice. It had been tried to repair by gluing together the ripped parts, with no success. It stayed broken and end of story. Thus, meanwhile groping through all the luggage, baggage, burdens and pockets, Mira Nova had recalled that she had packed one spare suit for herself, just in case. This was the only option now for Zarah to jump in, although the costume was many sizes too big. She looked quite ridiculous in it, indeed, but the chuckling glances aimed at her turned to normal when Warp gave a dark glower back at those. No one would mock his babe.

One other issue was Zora's lightsabre. Team Lightyear sequestered it from him, since he was not allowed to carry a weapon. Everyone knowing the reformed man understood that he would not in this world use it to hurt anyone, but the orders were orders.

One day, before leaving the current camp, the head of the expedition group was gathered in the common meeting tent, at a table. The topic was now -after all the losses, roaming and sudden rescue needs- the advancing of the crucial trip. Zurg had made a notice that the team would soon collide with the possible entrance of the forbidden valley. Hence, _The Peregrinator's Journal_ was the object of keen investigation. It told some quite interesting myths about the possible foyer.

Zurg's eyes burned in enthusiasm as he deciphered the lines on the holo-reader.

"...And in this, magnificently poetic rhyme tells how one ought to enter the destination. We discussed earlier that there is a cave tunnel ending up to a sealed door. Behind that shall be this place, whatever it then shall turn out to be."

One scientist took now the initiative to speak. His holo-disk told about some saved diagrams, measured indications and such pieces of technical jargon. Brushing his grey hair with a finger, the man began with a nasal voice, "During these days we have remote-controlled the Star Command satellite that is furthermore orbiting Isgurda, to get some further knowledge. We have advanced quite in our way, we are coming nearer the ground area where is measured to be volcanic activity. In such terrain, there might truly be possible to be vegetation or relevant."

Mira gave a glance at him, but was left to astonish the regard of the beside-sitting botanist for a moment. The alien kept his eyes targeted on Zora, who on the other hand was concentrated on hearkening to the scientist. The stare of those green eyes was somewhat angry and strict, as if they had tried to see through the Emperor's skin and bones. But Nova had no epochs to ponder this, she had to ask her question.

"So, how much do we have travel left? And what are the odds of finding this 'tunnel'?"

"Ahh, yes." Zurg rubbed his fingertips together. "You see, that the defile we are using is not quite branching. There are only small junctions with maybe half-a-mile fork-passes. Therefore we shall only promenade forwards. If the gateway exists -and I am thoroughly sure about that by quasars and their twin neutrons- it is near the end of this route! Is that not correct, that the satellite scan did show this gorge to be a cul-de-sac?"

The man with the echo results agreed, "That's correct, Mr. Lightyear."

"Oo, Jim-kraken-dandy! That is capital! Through my empir... ahem empirical knowledge," the old man hackled to muffle the wrong sentence he was involuntarily going to slip, "that is just how _The Peregrinator's Journal_ depicts the venue grounds towards tha-grydda!"

This declaration caused some animated fuss among the crew. Warp's deep voice came over the noise, giving a little sneer, "So, what else does the fairy tale tell? Are we gonna like get a shower of poisoned arrows over us when we have put our boots to pat the tunnel's ground? Or is there this classic big-huge-scary-stone-rolling-behind-us-that-nips-us-into-pancakes?"

"Hmm... unfortunately the book does not tell about that. There may be traps ahead, but I shall forecast that they are passable with such modern technology as we have. And how to open up the sealed door... my conclusion is that it is based on mathematics. There may be a code of some kind to solve... or relevant. One poem here tells that the ancient Isgurdians prohibited the course, but those, who were witted enough to find a way to open the shields, would be worth of tha-grydda's excellencies."

"Let's play with the logics for a while..." Darkmatter hummed, "Wouldn't just anybody be able to use the quick exit and bang the door with... let's say with a so stone-aged little friend as dynamite? Or just carve his way through with a simple drill?" As always, he was the sceptical one, spoiling the nimble mood there had just been.

Zora narrowed his eyes, as he noticed that this was a weak spot in the legend. "I do not know. But the ancient habitants of this planet were technically skilled. Otherwise they would never have been able to leave this ice desert when it became such a cold inferno. Quasars, I do not know. But when we are at the door, I am sure that there is an explanation for this. Maybe it is built or constructed so that using explosives would destroy the whole corridor complex like an earthquake would."

"...if not an earthquake has already done this moonwalk... how about just to melt the door with molecule acid or something? Anyways who would broil his brain cells to solve some boring number stuff..." the blue-tanned ex-crook continued sarcastically, but somewhat alarmed when meeting the bothered expressions of Zarah and two physicians, "...unless there's a bunch of geeks who like to play chess with math..." Patting Choi's crown he chuckled, "I know babe that you're one cratery kind to busy yourself with the weekly holo-mag of "Intergalactic Brain Knot".

"What's wrong if it if I like to amuse myself with exercises? Some folks enjoy crosswords. And what do you do, Darkie? You're interested in Bliblybleblobian tulip cultivation."

Giving a dumb smirk, Warp yielded, "Alright, alright, maybe theoretical mathematics has never been my domain."

The discussion went on. Lightyear could only come to the conclusion that there was perhaps something peculiar with the door structure and suggested that no more argue about blowing it to bits would be needed. Tomorrow the camp would be undone and the travel continued. Nevertheless, there was this one nauseous thing that Zurg had on purpose hidden like some stolen property. The prevailing state of Buzz Lightyear.

"Has anyone been able to locate him, yet? Namely our hard efforts may indicate to be futile, if he is never found!" Mira pointed out.

Zora sighed, burying his face into his palm. "Only if I knew... Quasars... Commander Nebula called me a few hours ago and explained that the energy traces Buzz' ship left, were leading to Trade World. He has sent there a few patrols to monitor the situation, to question the locals... but that place, that place... it is like a little grub would be dropped into an anthill..."

"If I were Buzz, I'd go to Killersville. Well, I've at least learned to think a bit like Buzz, since I was once programmed to mimic his every move!" XR gave his sentence.

"Killersville..." the Emperor's voice turned somewhat more cheerful. "Jim-kraken-dandy, I like your artificial intelligence, Tin Ranger. Almost as brilliant as mine! I shall announce to the Commander this alternative! My intuition corrects that he might be there."

XR did not know whether to take Father Lightyear's politeness as good or bad, but just nodded, "Yeah, whatever."

-----------------

By the night, the meeting was over. As the aliens and humans thronged out of the meeting space, scattering towards their own night posts, Mira caught again the odd goggle of the botanist. She was traipsing out almost beside this man, noticing his penetrating stare that was again addressed towards Zora. The old man could feel this pestering missile in his back, turning his head over his shoulder. However, he did not much pay attention to this, but closed the zipper of the marquee door behind his tall figure.

Nonetheless, the doings of this scientist did not end to this. Snatching the arm of his collaborator, he drew the man behind some equipment boxes.

"I have something to discuss with you. I don't know how to put this... but have you noticed that there's something peculiar in our expedition leader?" he whispered to the other male.

Installing his warming mask on, the physician who had just professed those holo-matrixes, beckoned silently, "Indeed. I can't really say what it is, but something says that I've seen or heard about that person, before."

At the same instant, ranger Kaadu walked by. He was lumbering towards his night-guard position, and randomly happened to hear every word of those two. Giving a guffaw, he casually threw, "Yeah, he resembles Evil Emperor Zurg a bit too much. If he'd have a grimacing helmet and a robe on, I'd say it's him. Heh, heh, but that's not possible, since that guy is not evil. And Zurg is dead."

But this utterance did not receive laughs from the sides of the scientists. "Do you know what you're talking about? I have thought just the same", the botanist frowned.

"B-but that's not feasible at all! Everyone knows the Dark Emperor died in an explosion on Planet Z."

"What do you know, Kaakki-Koni?" a sharp voice responded, "We have Warp Darkmatter here with us. He was supposed to be dead, too, but there he just traipses with his wife!"

"But that's now a completely different thing", Kaadu put his syllables in the middle, "He's gotten an amnesty. He's helping his friend Buzz Lightyear to heal up from that mental disease."

"Yeah, but you didn't achieve the point. He was supposed to be dead, but is not. And who knows what REALLY happened to Zurg!"

"You won't try to state that Zora Lightyear would be... ZURG? But that's ridiculous! I was just joking when I..." Kaadu began to object.

Nevertheless, more wrinkles grew on Na-Vetta's (the camp's botanist; the other botanist presented at the beginning, was furthermore on Capital Planet) forehead. "Didn't you just yourself point out how much he resembles Zurg? He's approximately as tall with the same kind of body structure, same kind of gesticulations and darn it, the way he TALKS! Who in this universe is using such phrases as _Jim-kraken-dandy_? Huh?  I have unfortunately met Emperor Zurg a couple of times face-a-face, the other time being when his hornets killed my family. And I if who knows how that a million times cursed sadist talks and acts!" Wrath blazed from Na-Vetta's eyes, as he with clenched fists almost yelled the last words.

"Now, now! Don't start to state anything you can't be sure of!" the calmer man, Kaakki-Koni endeavoured to cool down the heating situation. "We clearly know that Zora Lightyear is a relative of Captain Lightyear. Besides, Zurg was not by any means a human, moreover some unknown-race alien. And..." he was cut short rapidly.

"A relative? Yes, a relative! Dropped like from the sky.  And have you given a remark how well Darkmatter comes along with him? They're like some brothers."

"Now you're going a bit too far. Zora Lightyear is a good and virtuous man. The fact that he may a bit look and feel like Zurg doesn't make him Zurg", Kaadu became impatient, crossing his arms over his thorax.

"Surely if I would meet Zurg face to face again, that would be his end! END! I would pay the deaths of my poor family members!" Na-Vetta began to pour over, as if he had lost his sense.

"Now, now..." Kaakki-Koni shook his head. A sudden knock on his shoulder made him turn about. Ranger Ronto stood there, a baffled expression on his face.

"What's the hurricane in the tea cup about? You're keeping horrible hubbub, here."

This interlude made the botanist understand, that it was not appropriate to shout around like that. Before he had his change to answer, Kaadu was already explaining to his work mate, "We had just some arguing about the identity of Mr. Zoxedas... Zoxeda... how do you spell that name, anyways? Oh well, you get the point."

Innocently Ronto spread his arms, tilting his head, "He's some relative of Buzz Lightyear. Actually, I've heard rumours that he might be his father."

"Don't toy with us, ranger!" Kaadu got back his merry nature, slapping the back of his friend, "Everyone knows the intergalactic legend that Emperor Zurg killed Lightyear's father. And wouldn't that guy be a bit too young to be his daddy?"

"I don't know, I've only heard some stories hiking around this camp... and it wouldn't be that impossible... Mr. Z. Lightyear is a bit over fifty years, I've heard. He looks a lot younger, though." Hence the fatigued space police turned his back at the surprised group.

"Uff... it's late. I'm heading to sleep..." Kaakki-Koni yawned deep, saying the official goodnights after that. Also Kaadu, who had his guard shift, left the deliberating botanist with his own twisted thoughts.

And the burn in Na-Vetta's eyes did not die down. This sudden declaration only brought him more mixed ideas. Under his skin, the man had for years brooded revenge on the murderer of his family, letting the repressed hatred gain mammoth-weights.

"I will find out who is that man who calls himself Zora Lightyear. There's too much similarities between him and that person called Zurg... to be just accidental. And what's this father-son-thing? We have seen that there's an evil side in Buzz Lightyear... growing all the time. Good that I've listened to those transmissions coming from Star Command headquarters, so that I know at least a bit what's going on behind our backs..." promenading towards his own marquee, the scientist let his brains process all the material his head was stuffed with. "Evil Emperor Zurg... as Buzz Lightyear's father...? No way, that is REALLY too ridiculous. I cannot be. But on the other hand..." Then one more notion popped into his scull, "I'm going to spy him. And I might employ that ranger Puu-Cee to be my assistant in this thing. He doesn't much like the leader after the disappearance case. But I bet he'd like a bit more uni-bucks... Yes. With spying my presumptions either get a basis or the opposite... and if it turns out to be, what I'm believing... watch your steps, Mr. Lightyear."

-------------------

Days later in the mountain range of Gaidarun... 

The landscape around the toiling expedition group had gradually started to change. Fog, veiling mist rose above the snow, lying there like the robes of an apparition. In places, black, hardened magma stone revealed its bleak grin for the spectators. The grounds had turned volcanic, under the bedrock there were swelling those angry forces of the huffing and puffing heat. The slightly sweetish smell of brimstone was in the air. But, although the rock surface was warm, the frost bit almost as tart as before upper there.

Every step needed careful consideration. The visual field was narrow, and in the holes of the stones were lulling geysers, ready to blast off in the sky and burn the one that happened to step over it at the wrong moment. The brytares, luckily, had their natural instincts to tell where to put their hoofs.

XR was once again teasing Booster with his ghost stories, as the troops walked ahead. "...Then there's possibly this big dragon guarding the entrance. And prepare to cross the half-rotten suspension bridge under which flows burning lava..."

"XR, do you really think we'll have to slay a dr-dragon...?" the Jo-Adian stammered, believing every mock word. After the yeti adventure he was ready to expect anything.

"Yeah, sure! And while you are working with the dragon, orcs and uruk-hai, the brave knight XR goes to save the princess..."

"Uhh..." the big ranger stammered, before Warp's horselaugh got him awake from the fake dangers, "Hey, Tin Jar, cut it out! You're scaring the slim shady out of his suit! As well you could..."

"It's there! IT'S T-THERE!" an acute screech aborted even Darkmatter's rigmarole.

"W---What? Th---the dragon?" Munchapper piped, cringing swiftly.

Ranger Ronto, one of the vanguard travellers, dived from the middle of the haze, his arms in the air. "T---there it is! I saw it from here on! A d-downhill and there... after that---- _Two pillars and a cave in the middle of them!_"

--------------------

The time for Buzz Lightyear had gone like laying on clouds. He was treated like some Genghis Chan in the best rooms of the grub apartment house. Basking in his new glory, he just swifted his hand and a tray of fresh fruits with Rhudaurian berry liqueur appeared in front of him. Couching comfortably on a soft divan, he had the time to premeditate his noveau existence. He fiddled the golden round plate that was attached into his collars. This valuable forged article was made by one smith grub, as a gift for the new Dark Lord. It had two initials, blending into each other; L and Z, to indicate this majestic name _Lord Zenith_.

"Ahh... what a life! This it always should have been! I tasted this once on Planet Z, I was nearly worshipped, then when I began to obey my Father... But now... am I a Prince or relevant? The fact that my Father is an Emperor, makes me royal. It truly means that!" His blue eyes shining in enthusiasm, he had to admit that this little mind-play had leaded to quite itching results.

Towards the evening, Lightyear had other plans. He had gathered enough authority, so that he was able to govern the insects around him. But he needed still allies, if he ever wanted to realise his warped and insane fancies. The shroud of the dark side had fallen, begun the power struggle had. In his puny, not-so-bright brainpan, Zenith had bombastically sworn to attack the Alliance and force its functions into his own hands. Now, he rose up from his mattresses, calling the lackeys.

"Your Master is stepping out of his palace and you, humble servants are coming with me. Take as much weapons with you, as you have. It is now time to do the first actions concerning the new reign. We are taking _The Black Hole_ into our hands! It will become the base of the Zurgean Empire!"

"Yes, Dark Sir!" the beetles saluted, all in all 98 males with capabilities to follow their leader into the field. Small they maybe were, but efficacious in their craze.

"Alright, troops, to infinity and even further!"

Hence the company marched out of the building, bulldozing its way through the streets, Lightyear parading in the middle of them. Baffled stares of Tradeworldian aliens followed their march towards the notorious night bar. Buzz had chosen that one just because he knew the worst rapscallions were hanging around right over there.

And there it loomed, its neon holos blinking in the beginning night.

"Make way to the Lord!" Zenith commanded the servants, traipsing towards the front door. With a kick of heavy boot, he banged it open. As he stepped in, the tiny followers shoaled also in.

"Greetings, citizens! I am Lord Zenith and I come in peace, if you are ready to bend into my requests. I have come to take this place as my base!" 

The obscure-lit saloon gaped back at him with tens of eyes. The whole place, which had previously been full of drunken din, noises of commencing fights, had gone entirely tongue-tied. Buzz stood at the door, astride, his arms folded over his chest, standing like some general. However, as the first perturbation had gone by, a horrible roar of laughs was thrown out of tens of throats. The different-sized, -raced, and -coloured aliens that populated the hole were seeing Lightyear as some clown.

Thus, Zenith decided that the acceptance had not been pleasing. Snapping his fingers, he coolly uttered, "Very well, men. You wished for this. Humbles, ready!"

The grubs each drew their weapons forth, pointing them at the now again silent-gone thugs.

"As I said, I come in peace. All I want is this place and that I'm respected in an appropriate way", he narrowed his eyes.

The fearful taciturnity ruled the air, until one alien trod down from his bar chair, turning his multiple eyes towards Lightyear.

"I'm soo-o scared! Who's this baby who thinks he's the master of the universe?" the arrogant man chuckled impishly. Actually, Lightyear's appearance was that different, that no one was able to recognise him under that beard, tunic and robes.

"Greetings, Torque", Buzz responded sourly, "When did you find your way out of PC-7?"

"Do I know you baby?" Torque raised his five brows, "Well this one Buzzmondo once trapped me there, but who's there to resist me? Not even ya and your below-standard minions."

"Ohh so you want to do it the hard way, huh?"  Zenith was ready to wrap his sleeves up.

"Ha-ha! I beat up guys like you for my breakfast!"

"So we're doing this in traditional ways. Put your blasters down, troops!" Buzz commanded. "This one kid needs a training lesson."

"Ha-ha! You have ordered a knuckle-sandwich, baby. Here comes some fast food!" Clenching his all four fists, the alien gave then a bunch towards Buzz. But Lightyear ducked fast, made a surprise attack towards the villain (or who actually now was a villain, that's not so clear even to the author). As a pragmatic and rugged space ranger, the Captain knew the chicanery how to defeat an enemy. After some minutes, ouch-groans, fist slams and spur yells from the audience the space biker was laying on the floor with some loose teeth.   

"Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you", was Buzz' sneering comment after the fight. He was coolly standing on his both legs, putting the sleeves of his silky singlet down.

Scrambling heavily up, Torque was not actually angry at the victory owner, but moreover impressed. "You, baby, box quite well for just a human being. Friends?"

Raising his brows, Lightyear nodded, "I'll take it into consideration. I'm looking for skilled henchmen. And although I did beat you, I still think there's potential in you."

"Do you pay good bucks?" the alien wiped some dust away from his a bit rend outfit.

"It depends on the case." The Captain actually lied heavily, since he was as rich as a sewer rat. He had basically only the money he had stolen from the guards. Of course the grubs would loyally donate their whole fortunes to him, but that did not pop into his mind.

"Who are you, by the way? Never heard of anyone called Zenith. I still think I've seen you baby somewhere."

"Who am I?" Buzz boosted, "Are you sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody told you it was a happy little tale... if somebody told you I was just your average ordinary kid, not a care in the world... somebody lied."

"Ohh, sounds scary!" Torque answered ironically, "Well I'll buy you a drink. Then we can discuss about the gig. Whaddo I gotta do? Finish off Buzzsaw Lightwave?"

Meanwhile, the lackeys invaded the bar, with no resist from the other aliens. Since Torque was beaten up like that, no one dared to object this new conquistador. However, the customers were able to continue their tavern life just like before this, only that the bar owner suddenly had changed. The previous alien occupied with that job would be re-employed.

Zenith set himself to sit at the counter. "No, this is not about Lightyear. Much, much more challenging."

"What, baby? You want to rule the galaxy?" the biker gave a laugh, throwing the bartender a couple of coins.

"Exactly."

"Whoa, whoa!" Torque startled and was left to stare at him, "You're serious?"

"Lord Zenith never makes fun of matters like these."

"That's gonna be a big gig!" the alien scratched the back of the neck, "You're a bit late in your stuff, why didn't you ally with Zurg-baby when he a few months ago still was having his powerful empire? He'd have helped you out."

Darkly Buzz wrinkled his brows, aiming his sharp eyes at the five ones opposing him, "That's one of the things that is in my plan. To rebuild the glory of that reign. And bring Zurg back to his throne."

But this response made Torque glare at Zenith like he would have evaluated some debilitated. "Have ya like... mouse holes in your scull? Emperor Zurgie is dee-ead. Hello?"

The -in reality truly insane- ex-ranger kept his steady, dark vision. "Zurg is not dead. He's only a certain kind of prisoner of the Galactic Alliance. They have brainwashed him to walk different paths he used to follow."

Torque's expression shifted from qualm to consternation. "Zurg baby is NOT under six feet of sand? Howd'ya know so much? Who the heck are ya?"

"I'm his son." After that favourite, shocking declaration of Buzz, he took a sip of the rum. He had on purpose practised the tone of saying that manifesto, or its variations. That announcement pleased his ears, there was the echo of might in it. It sounded even more pleasurable than 'to infinity...' and so on, the worn-out babble.

"Whoa, baby..." was Torque's very slow utterance. Lightyear's previous sentence had really made an awe-impression.

"That's correct. So, are you ready to join me?"

"Kinda have to. See, this cloning device in me, which you possibly know over and out since being so witty baby, is kinda mess. No maintenance from Zurgie and blof."

"I kind of wondered why you didn't use it to beat me. Blast, that's the common problem of Zurgean technology. No one can repair them but he or his lackeys. Which reminds me, that maybe I can get a couple of grubs to check it out."

"Yeah, I get a couple of clone babies out, but they pop like soap-bubbles after two seconds. Not much use for those..."

"Too bad, since they'll be useful in my brilliant scheme..." Lightyear rubbed smugly his fingers together, and took another gulp. "Still, you're now put into other functions. I need allies and I need them a lot. You know the peoples here, you can find the best candidates for me... mwa ha ha."        

...to be continued...


	9. The seals of the unknown

---Commander Nebula's Office------

"Coming Star Command, this is ranger Ulvahdus reporting from Trade World!" a manly voice crackled over the comm. link. Nebula was sitting at his desk, leaning to his elbow. The recent days had been completely futile regarding the search of Buzz Lightyear. According to Zurg's instructions, he had sent some patrols of space rangers into the thug throng. Disguises were needed, of course, since without those there could have followed violent actions against the good-defending invaders. Thus, the masquerade-playing polices lounged in the bars, stealing glances at anything that looked suspicious. But mostly the news were about smuggling rackets, nothing remarkable.

"What is it, ranger? Any news of Lightyear?" Zeb sighed, fiddling his moustache.

"Unfortunately not yet, Sir. But there's something else that might interest you. Some new kind of mafia is raising its head here. I was for a small moment ago hanging around in _The Black Hole_, just in case if I could hear any slip-ups.  That place is completely renewed... for a few days ago, the ownership changed. Someone, who's calling himself '_Lord Zenith_', is hearingly gathering gang around him..."

"Look, Ulvahdus. This isn't the thing we're searching for here. I'm expecting news about Lightyear, not about some little felons playing Al Capones."

Actually, the Commander had never had the change to hear about Buzz Lightyear's Zurgean name. Hence he could not associate the connection anyhow.

"But Sir! What if _our target_ is trying to search its way among the henchmen of this boss? I have heard rumours that this Zenith has powers to carry out almost anything."

"Nah... Lightyear is not the kind of guy that wants to be under any management. He flies solo. I suggest you leave those inessential happenings aside and concentrate on finding the traces of the Captain."

"But Sir..." came an opposing answer.

"No disagreements. Remember that I'm your commanding officer. Now, over and out."

Deeply exhaling the old man switched off the vid-phone. "What about those minor gangsters... if I started to worry about them now, I'd have a worry for my every finger and toe. Buzz, where are you...? Craters, cannot you understand at all what's for your best?" Standing up from his chair, the Commander decided to leave his office for a while, to have a refreshening cup of astro-coffee in the cafeteria.

Oh, if he only had not rejected the studies of that new, menacing ghost...

-------------------------      

Back on Isgurda, the flabbergasted explorers had gathered in front of a complex ruin structure. Beneath a small downhill, that the one aghast ranger had mentioned, delineated a rough, gigantic stone wall. The normal gorge the travellers would otherwise had itinerated, if not now faced this, forked in the left, vanishing in the white, volcanic fog. Conversely, the colosseum ahead, was a construction gouged and dug straight into the rock face. The two massive pillars that were decorated with curled engravings were protecting the cave opening between them. That mouth, however, was not quite large, only some metres high (enough for Booster to grovel in). The frames of it were similarly carved into figures of festoons, abstract shapes and so on. The air and the acid rains had somewhat bedevilled the magnificent artistic work by leaching it, but otherwise the several-hundred-year majesty was still present.

The muteness, where only the showering of the geysers and some toots of the burden animals were heard, was broken by Zora's almost manic victory shout.

"I knew it, I KNEW IT! Mwahaaahhhhhaaaah! Rwahhhaaahhhaaaah! My incomparable intuition and wit were there to guide me! Ruhaah hrah hrah buwahhaaah! Jim-kraken-dandy, I am the best! I rule!" Gloating around just like in his emperor days, Zurg caused odd glances with his behaviour. If he had had his imperial rocket boots on, everyone could have seen him flit around the little site in front of the gateway. And the eye-pair that belonged to a certain botanist, frowned at him even more distrusting.

Warp knocked the shoulder of the cheer-ravelling royal, in order to quieten the rave outburst of enthusiasm. With so low tone, that no one of the nearby-standing heard, he sneered, "Now, cut it out, Lord Dark Helmet. We can take a competition about who's intelligence is more superior, you're or mine, after this li'l holiday sightseeing. Fine, we have found the tunnel. But the veggie ain't yet tamed."

"Ahh, yes... but half of the triumph is already here, Jim-kraken-d..."

"Now will ya get one day rid of that outworn Jimmy-crikee-dandle? You an' your sonny have this unbelievable habit to farm all kinds of ninny 'to-infirmity-and-under'-trash", Darkmatter snorted, beginning to stride towards a small group that was wondering the columns.

"Alright, troops!" he clicked the metal scythes of the right hand, "We're invited into the tunnel party. Let's start to prepare ourselves, then. The brutes'n stuff will be left to sing in the rain, we ain't gonna try to cram them inside that needle's eye. So we gotta split. Some folks have to stay out here, while the rest of us play the raiders of the lost arcanum. Suggestions, who's gonna come with?"

"We're coming with you", Mira held up her hand, referring to the whole Team Lightyear.

"Yeah, and Za, babe, ya better patter under my arm immediately, ya ain't gonna keep company to those boulders when your Master is battling with bats in that cavity", the alien gesticulated towards the woman, who was studying something at the other pillar.

"Sure, sure, Darkie. I'm just checking out something... like that if there would be something written over here... like some pieces of instructions or something..." she surveyed the weather-whipped rock surface. This caused some bustle among the few scientists, who scattered to see whether there was something that would look like hieroglyphs. But that luck was not granted to them, if there ever had been some script, the sulphurs and other nice substances had destroyed them. 

"Nothing there. Besides who the blasted crater would even understand some defunct language...? We need some action into this game", Darkmatter yawned, beginning to give the instructions of how to divide the equipment and crew into two groups, with Zurg.

Some hours later, Team Lightyear, the travel leaders and a few scientists were ready to step into the beginning mouth of mysteries. They all had large backpacks filled with food supplies, water, tents and so on. Not a single soul knew how long it would take to make the journey at the secret door, in addition that there would be still finding the mythical plant. The settler ones were already putting their marquees up, when Zurg and co. waved their hands for goodbyes.

"We shall keep contact via the comm. link. Remember strictly keep the eye on the plasma fence, so that it shall have no defections. Quasars, we shall need no more yeti-fights or victims because of those", the Emperor warned.

"Alright, guess they can keep their brains cool. C'mon, you ol' bloke." Warp snatched his arm. The former Agent Z was full of zest to jump into action.

The journey began. Quite suspiciously everyone approached in the tunnel, expecting some booby traps lurking behind every stalagmite. Although the outside of the cavity was beautifully decorated, the insides were just like in some nature-formatted piece of work. Rough rock walls echoed the steps back, while a light smell of some organic life-remains occasionally filled the nostrils.

"Those cursed hair carpets have had their lairs here, too. The stench is just the same." Darkmatter grunted.

"And if we meet those here, boy they're gonna get a hasty leave..." Munchapper was trying to be brave, although he was indeed afraid of those creatures.

But none of them seemed to have its den here. Maybe there had once resided those monsters, but they had abandoned this site because of a reason or another. Only there was the -how to put this politely- reek of poo around. 

The more the gaits advanced, the warmer it was. Thus the lightening of the outfits was necessary again, the warming masks could be tossed away. Nothing serious indicated to be on the way towards the end. Occasionally there were some cracks on the floor, which required some jumping or using the jetpacks, but those were amazingly the only hinders. No poisoned spikes coming down from the ceiling, nor a pack of exploding fireflies were there to surprise anyone.

Some hours went by, with periodic eat-and-rest-pauses. At least Booster requested those, packing then horrible amounts of chocolate into his maw. XR's comments about the forgotten slimming diet did not much gain attention, but Zurg's severe animadversion about sparing the rashes did. Thus, the promenading and panting under the heavy loads went on, until...

"It's a dead end."

"No... I think this is what we have searched for..." another blurt was heard.

The floodlight XR had was aimed at the furthest corner of the passé. "Whee... I think there's a door of some kind ahead..." he whistled.

Zurg could not hold his horses any longer, but ran at the target with his long legs. And, what else was there to follow, but a long and manic gloat, boosted with deep, hollow clucks.

"Here it is! Jim-kraken-dandy! The sealed door, _the sealed door_, wrahhggaaahhhggghhhaaaaah!"

"Sure, sure. Cut down the cackles, we all know it's a door. What else it is but a door, I don't consider it as a window", Darkmatter hummed.

The light brushed by a construction resembling a veranda of some kind. Obvious alloy structures began to cover the inside walls from a certain point on, continuing towards the gable that indicated to be the same material. Mira knocked it with her knuckles, giving an assumption, "I thing Mr. Darkmatter has an answer to his question why we can't just dig our way through this. It seems to be some very strong material..."

"Well howdabout the acid?" the blue alien smugly stroked his goatee.

"Nope. Null. Guess what this baby is made of according to my scans?" XR turned to speak to him, "Xylophonian black granite molten together with turbotodite, hyperiron and strumpbyxalite, spiced with boom-boom. A thousand times harder than terillium carbonic alloy. Won't let through terminators, hyper-hornets or molecular acid."

"But this is THE DOOR! The door to tha-grydda!" Zurg was still quite much in the world of fantasies, until someone pointed out again that it was not opened up, yet.

"Then, search for instructions, by quasars! Do not just stand there!"

While the android ranger was still structinizing the alloy layers, the others illuminated the wall. Indeed, there were hieroglyphs engraved into the surface with some kind of impossible tool. And beside them, could be distinguished a lock mechanism of some kind, as if the door had been a big computer. 

But a growl of deep disappointment soon fled Zurg's lips as he had enough studied the object, "By bursting fermions! This Chinese... who shall decode this mess? I have never seen a language like this... and so shall this stop our journey towards the essential herb?"

XR had heard his grumbling, pricking up his artificial ears. "Hey, big guy, can I lend a hand?"

"You? How would you help? If I cannot do this with my ultimate intelligence, how...?"

"The genius coming through..." the determined robot uttered, beginning to caterpillar his way through the taller persons. He took a small glance at the letter mess on the wall, then coolly began, "_No niin, kusä oot ny lampsinu tännekki __asti__, ni sit sun tarttee niinko mäsäyttää tää ovenläpi auki. Tajuutsä miten se tehää? No et varmaa, jos sä oot iha kako._"

The aliens around him were completely flabbergasted. Did the droid have the gift of glossolalia or was he just joking?

"You don't start to claim you can _read_ that?" Mira stared at the mecha.

"Sure, why not?" XR answered casually.

"I didn't know we had a protocol droid with us. Where in this universe have you learned to speak that Barbarian?" Warp astonished as well.

"I don't have the vocabulary for six million languages, but I'm not completely stupid," XR defended himself, "I believe I got the wonderful skill to understand Isgurdian when the LGM's were rebuilding me after you had so nicely blown me up!"

"But why would they include something like that to spin around your circuits?"

"Well... maybe the green uni-guys thought that the pride of Star Command one day turns to the dark side and needs a plant to heal him up, and that plant is behind a door that opens up with a system, which manual is written in Isgurdian. And it's not a complete dictionary of this Gibberish cramped in my chip, but it actually resembles quite a lot some other ancient languages. It's like a combination of _Uunokurputus_, _Dagobahian_ and _Uxgamagah_. If I can understand all those, I can mix 'em up and ta-da, I can speak Isgurdian", the robot proudly presented.

Warp now got his jaw hit the floor. "WHAT? You can understand Uxgamagah?"

"Yeah! I've all the time kept wondering why there is embroidered the text 'The Mighty Invincible  Lord W. Darkmatter' onto the sleeve of your common jumpsuit, in that language." 

All the present people burst into laughters, while the blue alien with shimmering cheeks hacked, "None of your business, what my clothes say." Once his overflooding egoism had gotten a little setback. (The author of this scribble makes a reference to Episode 3, where Buzz Lightyear was trying to comprehend the decorations of Mrs. Darkmatter's bracelets. Uxgamagah is furthermore the common language of Xaneda.)

"Ahem..." Zarah began her mouth still drawn from ear to ear, "Maybe we'll go on with the translation. It's great that someone _can_ now help us advance."

"Let's get then on with the show, shall we?" the robot rejoiced, beginning to read the lines.

"_Tää paasi aukee silleen, et sun tarttee honata sellanen nasta pikku arvotus. Tossa tän höpötyksen alapuolel on tollanen pöljä riimi, jos on silleen niinku ohjeet. Sit tosa oikeel on tollanen lukkohökötys, mikä sit aukee sen runoräpellyksen pohjalt, jos oot tarpeeks nörtti ratkoon sen_..."the ranger read out loud. "Hmm... it says that there's a poetic riddle of some sort to solve, and based on that, something needs to be done with a lock mechanism situated on the right..."

The beam of the torch crystal approached the mentioned place. Indeed, there was a table in the shape of an equilateral triangle, embedded into the stone. Inside it, there were square, little tablet holders like in a jigsaw puzzle of some kind. Further in the right, everyone distinguished a sort of frame, with little metal, removable square pieces hung into it. Some of those blocks had fallen out of their scaffolds, lying now on the tunnel floor. Keen on to comprehend, what they were, Zarah took one of those in her fingers, inspecting it in the weak light. It had a little figure carved into it, plus three tiny teeth projecting out of its backside. The plate was few inches per its side.

"Let me see..." Choi suddenly snatched the light from Zurg, who was after that quite surprised of her courage. In the beginning of this trip, she had hidden behind Warp's back when the Emperor had passed by, and now dared to yank something from his fingers? In his heart, the old man was delighted to see that his former villain-image began to fade.

"This..." she tilted her head from side to another, "you see the little teeth both on the backsides of the plates and the tablets of this triangle frame? I believe these plates need to be put into a certain order in this and then some key mechanism opens up the door..." 

"So... is this like playing domino or what?" Warp raised his brows.

"Hello, folks... have you forgotten the linguistic luminary? I bet it would be useful to translate the 'poem' at first, before starting to set the pieces into a wrong order and then get the whole tunnel to collapse on our backs", XR murmured.

"Indeed... well then, shall you begin your task?" Zora asked.

"Okay. But I sure am not any muse, so that I could vamp a whole rhyme-matching equivalent in English. You guys have to keep a gangsta rap sufficient."

Rolling her eyes, Mira pointed at the hieroglyphs, "It doesn't have to be a literal masterpiece. Just tell us what to do."

"Alright... it says that you need to put those plates in a certain order onto the frame... just like the lady here noticed. What the... now it's jabbering about some 'most beautiful harmony in the universe'... something about numbers. 'The symmetry shall fill the sides of the triangle... three for the sunrise, one for the sunset and seven for the Valley of Dead...' Uhh, this starts to go over my CPU." Wiping robotic sweat off his helmet, XR gave a glance at the others. Most of the group were shaking heads, except Zurg, Zarah, and one physician.

"Keep on going, there's a sense in it", she announced.

"What, are you gonna MacGyver our way through that, babe?" Darkmatter gave a chuckle.

"Darkie, please don't now spoil this. It talks about symmetry relating to mathematics. It might refer to prime numbers."

"What are those? Are they like... very small numbers or something?" Booster gave his first question in ages.

The physician took the oration, "No. A prime number is a digit that can be divided only by number one or by itself. Like two, three, five, seven and so on. There's no smallest or largest prime number ever found, they continue to infinity and... uh, beyond. Bad comparison, I know."

"Ohh..."

"Alright... the fella here continues his story," XR gave a side note, "this script keeps furthermore babbling about symmetry and harmony. Pretty esthete has this guy been who wrote this... Okay, then there's an inner triangle, where should be put more plates to form '_the harmonic prime triplet_'. Oh boy this troubadour has had his head full of harmony..."

Zurg took a look at the frame. "Well the latter riddle shall be an easy one. Everyone in this universe should know the thing they teach already to little grubs in the kindergarten... one plus two plus three makes the same as one multiplied with two multiplied with three. That is called the 'harmonic triangle' throughout the galaxy."

XR took one of the plates to observe the markings in it. "Well yeah, this thingie here has 'six' stamped on it in Isgurdian."

"So these little holders have to be filled with some combinations of numbers... one plate representing one digit", Nova nodded.

Zarah let her fingers wander in the air above the triangle frame. "This has holes for five-digit numbers in the sides... and four holes in the middle of the smaller triangle inside it. Just wondering..."

"Yes, there comes some five-digit prime numbers, then, onto the sides of it... and if it talks about symmetry..."

"...then they need to be symmetric. XR, start to buzz your Erastothenes' sieve. We need five-digit symmetric prime numbers."

"Aye", the robot blurted, "11411, 11311, 33533, 77377, 77477, 77977... that's it, no more options."

"Matches the ballade", Zarah fingered her chin, "_Three for the sunrise, one for the sunset and seven for the __Valley__ of __Dead__._ The one that starts and ends with three, comes attached to the left side of the figure, since the sun rises from south on this planet and that side points towards the south according to the compass." While bethinking herself this, she gesticulated XR to give her the plates with right numbers.

"Babe li'l..." Warp came from behind to pat her head. "Your Master is pleased with your thinking."

"Well I hope I'd sometimes occur to be something else than a constant setback on our numerous travels... you know, if I'm not indolent by being tortured in an electric chair, brought in front of you as a spy, then I'm yeti's dinner", she looked up at him with a timid expression.  

"Sh-ht, don't think about those, now", he answered tenderly back.

"Alright, are we after the bill and coo ready to go on with the math lesson?" the android yawned.

When the first plates had been put into their slots, Zurg announced, "So there are the two other matrixes... just wondering...there shall be quite many possibilities to combine those two, if we take into consideration that the four numbers of the inner triangle have already 24 different options to be in their right places... the one, two, three and six."

An hour passed by, as the travellers tried to find the right composition. However, it turned out quite frustrating.

"We have tried that already, Princess. Put that piece here."

"No, we haven't! Give it back!" Mira jerked the plate from XR.

"No, Princess, according to my..."

"And don't call me PRINCESS, you rusty jarhead!" her temper suddenly puffed.

Thus the fellow-feeling was being pecked in the attack of the vultures.

"Hey, hey, the white flag flares. Stop that quarrel, people here try to think", Warp snorted.

"Yes", the physician announced, "Since I believe there's still something that we haven't observed concerning the symmetry. I just have been thinking about the one sure number series... what if there's a certain order also _inside_ it?"

"And that would be...?"

"Ranger XR, is the three-digit number inside 33533 also a prime number, I mean 353?" the man wrinkled his brows in meditation.

In a picosecond the calculation was ready, the answer being correct. Thus, the scientist inquired the mecha to count some more of his thoughts. And there were testimonies for his theory; both 77977 and 11311 had three-digit prime numbers inside them.

"Hot rockets! Maybe we get through, after all!" Booster gave a happy smile.

"Yep. Now just splash the stuff in the middle, and then keep your spirits high..." Darkmatter commented.

Hence... Zurg was after some minutes trying out one combination of the smaller triangle by placing the two-plate into its slot. As the block reached its home, a loud click got the explorers startle. Something started to creak, obviously behind that door structure.

"Oopsie... now the self-destruct mechanism went on..." Warp gave his usual sarcasm and received a bunch of angry glares back. Among those glowers was not XR's, who continued the jesting, "Yeah and then a sweet feminine voice begins to count, '_You have exactly two minutes before complete destruction. The function is irreversible. The tunnel will collapse exactly after one minute and fifty seconds.'_"

Indeed, the nauseous squeak turned even louder. Small vibrations shook the tunnel floor, boosted by a frail dust clouds flying down from the ceiling. But in front of the stunned men and women, the metal door complex slowly began to change. First, the layer where the locks were situated, was raised up like some curtain, vanishing into a large opening above it. Behind there, was another alloy slab that was then swallowed by the floor. And behind it a third seal... a split in the middle of it, like in a folding door. However, as the rumble and tumble ceased, it did not open up.

For some minutes, a complete cemetery-silence filled the corridor. The dust gradually landed featherily onto the shoulders of the spectators.

"What are we supposed to do now? The system is still shut", the botanist threw in.

Zurg tapped to the door, skimming its surface with a finger. "Hmm... I shall believe that the force of the brains shall turn to the force of the body. Look, you pathetic mortals... ah, excuse me, I mean that this is the _pathetic mortal part_ of the door, ahem..." he cleared his throat after the wrong-chosen syllables, "This one has hinges." Pointing at those objects with the light, he waved his hand to Booster. "Ranger Munchapper, I believe your turn has become. Push this door open."

And so the rotund alien did what was said. After some hard propulsion, the massive halves began to give in. A cloud of warm air puffed in, withal a ray of light. Grunting the Jo-Adian used his shoulder as his tool, pushing, pushing... And as if the hinges were suddenly healed with lubricant, the door sides banged open, causing Booster to fall down... onto a soft grass mat.

A series of gasps trailed in the thrilled atmosphere. There it was... the unknown. 

...to be continued...


	10. Tha-grydda

As warmness met the hands of coldness, the forces danced a couple of pirouettes together, finally blending, forming white fog as their heritage. The first law of thermodynamics was in complete action. The door, through which the group had just stepped onto the sand-grass mat, had been a true cork of a vacuum flask. Beyond there, sweet warmness was ahead, making every cold-shiver or cankering vanish from anyone's bones.

More onomatopoetic expressions fluttered in the air. Those 'oohs' and 'aahs' adored the sight hidden in this unknown pot of nature. The awe-inspired travellers had stepped over the so-called threshold of the door, now in disbelief getting their sight organs used to the oddness. Like a deep cauldron, indeed, the mythical valley spread beneath them, as the heroes were now standing up there, on a kind of welcome-doormat-cliff. It was as if a dead volcano had been cut open, as steep stone walls surrounded the pot from every side. Up there, they left only a small, round cap for the sunlight to crawl in. But only a weak streak of that sun's by-product approached that far. Actually, the valley had its own illuminators. Saltpetre-type phosphorating substance was gleaming from the lava-stone walls. The impression was, as if the whole complex had bathed in a certain dusk eternally.

The vegetation, on the first glance, resembled a jungle. All kinds of lush plants were growing there on the bottom, and upper, as the explorers had already witnessed. No voices of animal life were heard, though. Who knew, maybe all the species on Isgurda were as silent as the yetis... but hopingly not as deadly. Booster, his eyes wide of veneration, tapped to the edge of the cliff, being the first one to utter something else but nasal noises.

"D-Do you guys know where we are? Hot rockets! This is the f-forbidden valley! It's so beautiful!" he cheered.

"Yeah... welcome to Jurassic Park. Better keep your senses clear before a T-Rex jumps in front of ya from the bushes", XR spoiled his mood. With those words, he made Warp chuckle,

"You know what, tuna can? I was gonna say just the same, only referring to the sequel. '_Welcome to the Lost World!_'"

"Ohh, but they made a third part to that film, too!" the robot began to wisecrack, nevertheless soon cut short by Zurg.

"Capital! I believe we have gaped at the scene long enough, so that we shall be ready to climb down the hillside. Soon the night falls, and everyone needs rest. I know that I am full of zeal -Aah, that word has a glorious Z-letter in it!- to find the herb, but even a superlative man like me needs rest."

"Righto. I guess someone's brains need also a li'l lullaby after such efforts", Darkmatter babbled to Zarah, who pushed his arm playfully with an elbow.

While descending the downward slope, the botanist ripped one small grass with him. He was indeed keen on to know about the scientific side of the vegetation. Namely, normal photosynthesis would have not worked in such circumstances at all as were in the volcanic pot. Light was sparse, and the saltpetre would definitely not work as a spring for any photosynthesis-advancing reactions. Thus, while the others did their small talk about movie references and other as important things, Na-Vetta cooked his own theories.

"These plants have the green colour, so they must produce chlorophyll or relevant in a way or another. Maybe they use some kind of advanced chemosynthesis... or then some very _subtle_ form of photosynthesis..." he kept mumbling in an unclear tone.

"Well, isn't the most significant thing the point that those are like alive?" XR yawned to this botanical babble. He was in the serious need of some oil and battery recharging, and gradually got a bit bored that no camp was settled, yet.

"Of course your artificial 'intelligence' cannot comprehend how remarkable finding this valley is concerning botany. We have found completely new kinds of species, new kinds of energy production forms, and you dare to say so!" the man was expressly offended. "This is one of the great summits of my career, to be able to testify the existence of something like this, and you..."

"Don't care about ranger XR, Mister Na-Vetta", Mira put her apologies in the middle, "He just thinks about himself, always."

"What? I think about myself? I think of _you_ often, Princess, in addition that the more beautiful gender is the constant object of my profound thoughts. And didn't I just help you all open up that sealed gate? Oh the gratitude, oh the gratitude, as I at first sacrificed myself on the altar of linguistics and now I receive only cold words as my prize...?" the android whined, getting Nova roll her eyes even more.

Thus the bottom of the pit was finally reached. The marquees were soon put up, and a small plasma fence put around the site. No one was sure, what might be moving in the bushes, praying every by-passer. Zora regretted, that he had gone on the route with such a small company, but there were not much other options. Four men had been lost this far, and those who were left outside the cave, truly had their hands filled with work, already. They had the guarding of the pack animals, taking care of the further equipment and so on. They were now informed about the findings and that the aim was at least partly achieved. Still, no sure contemplations were there, how many days Zurg and his escorts had to reside aloof from the main encamping. The valley was not quite large, but finding some half-unknown plant in there, was like searching for a neutrino in a pile of neutrons.

However, _The Peregrinator's Journal_ would be there to help at least a bit. Whereas it had not described how to enter the secrets, it on the other hand had rhymes and literary pieces that sung about tha-grydda. As the fatigued wayfarers sat at the campfire, eating their rations, Lightyear screwed up his eyes and studied the holo-book. Yet, there were disappointments to face, too.

"Quasars! How much I ever try to flip this epos, it has not any picture or drawing of the herb!" he spat discontent.

"So, what does it say in overall about the thing? Are we supposed to find like some King of the Flowers?" Warp gave a glance at him.

"No. There is this piece that says '_The most unpretentious shall be the most precious_'. Hence we are to expect something that may look like a humble weed."

"Yes, and it grows in symbiosis with this one mushroom. So, that combination is one remarkable point to observe", the botanist added.

"Oh, well... tomorrow will show if we're gonna get friends with the bulrush..." XR threw lazily in. Actually, everyone was quite tired, so the campers eagerly put their heads onto the pillows. The grumbling robot with Booster was left on the night watch. And nothing indicated to happen among the grasses in the dark hours.

The first day in the volcanic jungle was quite much nothing but snuffing around in the tussocks. The round pit had a radius of a few kilometres, but the vegetation in it was very thick, like too many yucca palms would have been put to grow in the same jardinière. The pioneers used machetes to cut the liana, in order to advance somehow. The eyes had to be kept following the soil, since tha-grydda did not grow in trees. Not alike in a normal Tellurian jungle, where the ground layer is usually consisting only of dead leaves and rotten trunks, here the grasses grew wild even in the murkiest shades of the high palm-type trees. That was the result of the dark-friendly chemosynthesis. Animals, however, were not around or they were not visible. So this was not Karn, unlike Team Lightyear had on the first spot assumed. No wasps, no bees, no hornets, no mosquitoes... it was completely bug-free environment.

"Ahh the wonders of the nature..." XR moaned ironically when he got tangled up with a vine and had to be cut out with scythes.

"Any more flower-power hailers here than the Tin Toy?" Warp guffawed.

"Well... I kind of like... umh..." Booster shyly noted.

"Oh, yeah... you were the peasant. And weren't ya, Zora, originating from some forest farm?"

"Not exactly, Darkmatter. You do know Morph, do you not? It is like Tellus, has a lot of nature on it. But I understand if you have lived half of your youth on Trade World, you shall not see quite much trees over there", the Emperor answered. "Artificial flowers, maybe. Ruhahah wrah groh graah."

"Laughing to his own jokes... Or can I describe that being laugh? It actually sounded a lot more human when he used to have the purple bucket on", XR hummed silently to Mira -so that no one else heard- who had listened to the small talk her mouth in a light grin.

Gradually it was the time to settle down for the night, again. The hopes were still high of finding the herb. So, more reading of _The Peregrinator's Journal_ at the campfire and trying to figure out what the plant would look like. Browsing, scanning, squinting the eyes... until a little screech startled the encampment.

"Hey, hey, turn back! What was that?" Zarah stuck her hand into the holo as if it would have brought the previous page back.

"Here's the last holo. What about it?"

"Look, that little brown mushroom. Isn't it..."

"Jim-kraken-dandy!" she was interrupted, "Ahh, of course, of course, that is capital! Glorious! Of course that is _tuppengalar_, the other symbiotic counterpart! Why have I not found that previously here?" Zurg gloated intent.

"Maybe because you're trying to read without your glasses..." Warp sneered.

"Quasars, Darkmatter, I do not need glasses, any more. I was operated with a laser surgery when... ah... you know _when_." The Emperor did not quite much want to point out that his eyes were healed up at the same time as he was recovering from the Planet Z accident.

"Okay, okay. Got the hint. Hint hint."

"Now will you two stop nagging about the glasses? We got now something documented here that should be sought for", Mira sighed.

"Jim-krak..."

"And please no more Jam-cracking-dandyism, we wanna go to bed." Darkmatter yawned in the middle. "If the boletus is now depicted, why bother keeping the late hours."

So everyone tiptoed into their tents.

The next day produced results already on the morning. The team cut their way through a large bush area, ending up to a little field with only a few trees. And there... XR, who was nearest the ground, almost caterpillared over those same mushrooms he had seen in the holo-drawing.

"Ohoy, guys... I think I bumped with the jackpot..." he whistled to the others to stop their headway.

"Great! Here we got a good start. The herb itself should be growing near", Mira nodded happily.

Booster indicated to the one who found it. As he had turned his head about his shoulder to see what the others were squatting over there, he got stumbled to a tree root. He ended up lying on his stomach in the soil, getting his mouth full of those legendary plants.

"Pthui! Ptyi! Stupid square root! Uh-uh..." he spat away the grass from his mouth.

"Hey! That's unfair! Why did ya have to get all the credits?" XR rolled to him, being jealous because of his findings. With his scanners he was able to recognise the green things in front of the Jo-Adian in a picosecond.

"Uh... what? Hot rockets, is this...?" Booster's eyes went wide.

"Only cold rockets, thank you. We don't need forest fires. Yeps, big guy, you're munching the magical spice."

"Ohh, wow! And I found it! Come here, everybody!" Cheerfully the ranger stood up and gesticulated to the rest of the searchers to come and see.

"Yeah, I bet they're gonna give you an academy award prize for that discovery..." the little robot furthermore unravelled his ill-will.

The herb occurred to be truly modest-looking dark-green grass-like plant. It had no flowers, whatsoever, and it grew right among the other weed. But it corresponded to all those details the old rhyme had told. No other of those rushes resembled at all the depiction. It had little round, wax-surface leafs, its stem was spongy and spotted. A true moment of merry-making it was indeed, when this living myth was now brought in front of the eyes of intelligent beings.

Thus... a report to Star Command was the first thing on to-do list. Commander Nebula on the other side of space sounded quite suspicious when Zurg's gruff laughter filled the ether.

"What? Craters, do you really think you've found it?" Zeb scratched his head in the little holo-statue transmitted from his office.

"You mean you did not believe in the whole thing?" Zora saw through that baffled expression. So the Commander had to give in.

"Well... sort of. I did this just for the poor Buzz... but I didn't actually think you'd find something..."

"Tsut, tsut. Is that it what they call the 'ranger intuition'? Do not believe anything you cannot touch right ahead?"

"No, no! Ranger intuition is something that is needed when predicting dangers and... eh... surprise attacks of evil emperors." Nebula had problems to hold his chuckles when seeing Zurg's bothered expression in the return-holo. "But... craters, of course I'm happy to see that you've succeeded in the journey! And that gives a lot better prospects for Buzz to..." Interruption occurred.

"You have found him, have you?"

Nebula's face went uneasy, "Uh... no. But we're in the middle of it."

-------------------------

So, the work was only at the beginning. Now would be the time to collect the herb, so that it could be transported out of the valley and even for further use in civilized environments. Zurg opened his wrist communicator and gave an enthusiastic announce for the camp outside the caves. Three rangers were asked to orient through the under-earth tunnel and come to lend a helping hand. If decent loads -and that meant the demand of a little village- of tha-grydda were going to be lugged outside the forbidden valley, more strong shoulders and backpack space would be needed to carry it. Unfortunately the mountain railway did not allow those brytares to scramble through; the tunnel was sometimes namely so narrow, that the animals would have gotten stuck into it just like if Booster would have tried to cram himself into a mouse hole.

After a few hours, Ronto and Kaadu with ranger Homeitiö came panting from the lock-miracle door. Thus began the barbering, every sprout visible of that herb was dug up with its roots, bottled and conserved into life-sustaining liquids. That latter substance was preserved as powder that could be mixed up with normal water and thus form the necessary fluid. The nearby little river was ideal for water-taking, after XR had made a quick-test about its safety. The percentages of sulphur were quite high, but that did not matter in this case. The thermal jars where the plants would stay as fresh as in a cryogenetic cylinder, were quite weighty. So it was not a piece of positron to carry them.

 But... not all went through peacefully. Always there needed to be the weak link of the movie, the lonely thundercloud rolling itself vexingly over the sun. A quarrel was put up between Zora and Na-Vetta. The botanist, of course, would have wanted to take samples of several tens of other plants with, but there was no space left any more. So his suggestion was that they would spend a few more days in the valley and use half of the jars, meant for tha-grydda, and collect some other interesting grasses and hays into them. But Zurg's chest-tone objection to this was grave.

"We do not have time for this. Our food supplies are getting smaller day by day. It would take at least a week to complete your study project. No."

Spreading his arms in the air, the slim scientist grunted, "But this is the apex of my career! I haven't ever been able to visit any world like this... I mean, look at the changes, what botanic treasures this valley might close into itself!"

"No. And besides, we need all the possible space for tha-grydda. Those are the orders and so those shall be." There was not much compromise spirit in Lightyear.

"Cannot you see my point?" Na-Vetta's voice turned snapping, "Isn't there now...?"

"No there is not. This expedition was arranged solely for searching for tha-grydda, nothing else. You can apply Commander Nebula for another trip if you wish. But this time, no herbarium-collecting." Zora's tone was steady and austere. Turning his back at the stubborn forage fan, he only spurred on the others to quicken the stint, namely the collecting.

Actually, every piece of information the Emperor had said about the nutrition supplies and so on, was true. Zarah's accident, the continuous storms and other setbacks had delayed the progression quite much. There was the anxiety that the food would not even last properly for the return. But this did not convince Na-Vetta at all. Bitterly he began to brood darkly the neglecting. Although being in such a high position in the scientific circuits, he was not cooperative, merely self-seeking and somewhat an arrogant male.

"I hate that man. What is he trying to be? He's ruining my career! I could have found almost anything in here just in a few days and he only keeps whining about some food! Surely some man can stand with a bit smaller rations. He's just so selfish. Thinking about only that Buzz Lightyear and his healing up. The heck, he's just one man in this galaxy, how can that be so important, while it would be a triumph of science to bring these new species into the daylight!" Murmuring and pouting he tramped around and around the same circle in the grass, until Zurg's command stopped him.

"Now do not just play your merry-go-round there, but go and pick the herb like everyone else!"

Rolling his eyes, the botanist knelt onto the ground and began to snatch the plants out of the soil. And more he went on protesting in his mind. "What the heck he thinks he is? He's just himself standing there like some king and watching while everyone else toils! Just stands and whips! He could very well come here and mess his hands with the mould, himself! I'm just so sick of his haughtiness. One more feature that would point towards Emperor Zurg. Hmh... just come to think of it, he even walks in a similar way..." the botanist had stopped his work for a second and inspected the object from behind a large bush. "That swing to left... I almost could imagine him holding a hem of a long cape now in his hand... and wouldn't those extremely long, thin fingers sit well into some similar kinds of gauntlets Zurg once had...? Hm-hm-hm..." Seeing a hummock of tha-grydda right in front of him, he burrowed it out of its nest, wiped the compost off and set it to float into the preserving liquid. "I'm just quite sceptical concerning the so called 'healing power' of this thingy... I bet here would be a lot more interesting issues on this planet than just this. And I wonder what is the purpose of collecting this... I would see there some benefits, if this plant is going to be cultivated after the trip, but that's not likely. Stupid jerk. He could have gotten part of the kudos, if I would have brought something marvellous in front of the eyes of Capital Planet's Botanical University professors. And now, nothing. Only this one plant with no guaranteed impacts. Hmph."

 So the picking was done, and all the knapsacks freighted. The overkeen Zurg packed his bags so full of those cans that had to give up almost third of his load. Although he was a very sturdy man, with more muscle power than even Warp had, he would have had to go on all fours if he had wanted truly to take all that mass back to the homey defile.

"Now, Mister Hercules, give the rest to ranger Munchapper. He'll carry even you on his shoulders if necessary", Warp horse-laughed at the Emperor, who was wobbling under the kilos. Grousing the man gave in, "Quasars! I shall show that I am the most powerful! I _must_ rule, I _must_ be the most magnificent! Quasars, I was going to send a holo-transmission to my Smoopsiepoo about this, but you come and spoil everything! Hmph!"

Hence the long way back could be started. The herb was collected and everything was supposed to be fine... but as the outside spectators had seen, the camp was like a ticking time bomb.       


	11. More dark hazards

Meanwhile the voyagers on Isgurda had toiled for Buzz Lightyear's possible healing, the man of speech himself grew more mighty in power. He had found a way to gather uni-bucks to stream towards him by giving shelter to some very wealthy criminals, who were at the moment wanted by the police. Buzz' new quarters was their asylum, and they paid bananas so that they would be able to enjoy the protection of the Imperial Stormtroopers (so Lord Zenith now called his loyal grubs). And beside that, with the aid of those criminals, he had started a smuggling business. Unbelievably fast the shiny coins found their ways into Buzz' pockets, making him gain more dark majesty. In addition, he had an army of skilled henchmen licking the dust in front of him. As Zenith had asked Torque, thus the space biker had pulled his socks together, and brought scum in front of his master. Pickpockets, con artists, bounty hunters... Trade World was full of everything like that. If someone was in the search of evil, he was able to create his own paradise in there. A gangster's paradise. 

 What came to Lightyear' s new habitat, he had conquered more buildings to his own use, either with contracts or just by snapping his fingers and a couple of lackeys had banished the former residents with the menace of ion blasts. If Zenith was not obeyed, neither would he be interested in one's well being. Still... there was something left of the old, heroic Buzz Lightyear inside him. For instance, he could not tear anyone's life away, although he did not anymore get compunction about hitting someone. However, all in all he was a better Master for the beetle race than Zurg ever had been. He did not use them as evil bowling balls or char them with laser regard, neither kicked them around like the amiable Father had done. Actually, Lord Zenith somehow respected those, who served him, although he kept himself as a supreme overlord (next to Zurg).

 One day, in a large flight hall on the roof of one huge skyscraper, which Buzz had just proclaimed to be his until the dusk of time, he was eyeing his new vehicle.

Beside this robes-dressed Empire Z Prince, was standing Rentwhistle Swack, licking his teeth and rubbing greedily his fingers together. "Yes, your Highness! This is the very best issue I can provide. This was once one of the spare ships of Emperor Zurg. Our finest men have smuggled it from Planet Z, and renovated it. You see, the cushioned seats are covered with genuine ermine, there are also..." However, the charlatan's fluent bragging was cut short, as Zenith collared the man.

"You better sell me proper goods or you shall taste the revenge of the dark side!" Buzz hissed from between his teeth, lifting the trickster up to the level of his face.

"Uh... your Highness, I swear I..." the man between the ceiling and floor sweated in panic. Lightyear knew this person over and out, so there was no easy trust existing toward this bloke.

"Check the ship. If you find even one rust spot, you", he shook his finger in front of Swack's nose, "You will suffer. No one will sell or even try to sell Lord Zenith useless junk. Not today."

"Sir, it'll take a few hours to overhaul the ship", one mechanic noted.

"Very well, then. You put this man under control. He will not go anywhere from this room before you have surveyed the things he tries to sell me", the royal gave a dark glance at a couple of guards behind him. Thus he marched loftily away, his nose pointing at the ceiling.

 The space ship, however, turned out to be in good condition. A queenly vehicle it indeed was. Not even near the size of the Dreadnaught it gained, but at least there were more room than in a common Star Cruiser. And the Son of the Emperor decided that this would be enough glorious for starters.

"Groh groh ruwahhaaah! This is just what I wanted!" Zenith, his arms in the air, admired his noveau imperial flagship. As to make a small note about his current laughing style, he had on purpose practised a similar chest-laugh as his Father used to have inherently. With such an evil laughter, he thought he sounded more powerful and that it would cause awe in his minions. Oh the idiocy, oh the idiocy...

Nevertheless, the chariot of the so-called royal at least had ostentatious frames. The black-purple massive spacecraft was polished shiny, it had a stylized golden Z-letter painted into the hull.

"Ahh, my Imperial Insignia!" Buzz almost danced with his hems. "I'm buying this ship. Pay this man the sum." A guard came with a purse and passed it to the complacent Swack. He had for a nanominute ago wiped the cold sweat off his forehead, when apprehending that no one was going to put his head on a silver plate for this.

"Ahh, Mister Lord Zenith, I would have also other very interesting ware to sell! I have a good stock of Imperial Hornets that are _very_ illegally transported also right from the core of the Zurgean Empire..."

"No. I have nothing to do with those robots. Not today", Buzz concluded. As he had come to know those metal wrecks in the years of Universe Protection Unit service, he knew they were unreliable in every possible way one could calculate in his brains. As the malfunctioning shortcuts did not interest Zenith, Rentwhistle attempted to hawk him a dozen other objects pilfered from Zurg Tower a bit after the destruction of the Empire, like a tea-set, Imperial purple slippers, a violet bath-tub, a Z-decorated beach ball and even old bread that had been found from the kitchen premises (although the food item resembled now mainly a black, stony clod). After that suggestion, nonetheless, Swack was kicked out of main door.

----------------------------

Slowly the weeks crept by, as the winter planet travellers toiled on their return journey. Their nice friends were the blizzards, the stinging frost, the blizzards, the lovely poisonous snow, the blizzards... and were the blizzards already mentioned? However, nearly as troublesome it was to creep back along that defile as the single ticket had been. Security was kept as precise as before. Namely, some other yeti clans were plaguing the encampment during several nights. No men were luckily lost, but in every case it was not a nice surprise to find one of those blue-haired gorgons breathing straight behind your back of the neck.

The most bitter backlash was the disappearance of Buzz. Behind the tents, some kept cursing that what benefits were there in this voyage, if the patient was possibly already somewhere in Andromeda? Commander Nebula was only able to flood his apologies, that his troops could not get the trace of that mentally ill. Even Zora's temper was heavily on ordeal. Sometimes the Zurg in him flared up, flaming the poor Commander to the lowest infernos anyone could even invent. Often smoke coming out of his ears, Father Lightyear slammed the communicator lid shut after a fruitless conversation, only then sitting on the edge of his camp bed, cursing some ancient oaths of Planet Z.

But there was one person that was keenly interested in listening to these swearings and tantrums behind the tent canvasses. A pair of hearing organs that belonged to ranger Huuhkaja, recorded every at least dubious strain spinning around Zora. And a certain Na-Vetta was very pleased to come across these features that gave boosts to his suspects. Half a step closer to Emperor Zurg, again... day by day it became clearer that there was something peculiar in the old man.

 One, very late night Warp was visiting Zurg's tent. Almost gnawing the nails of his flesh hand, walking a circle across the marquee floor, he was at least as indignant as his former dark master. The elder man kept bellowing into his wrist communicator, the bothered Nebula in the other end.

"Now shall we ever get any sense to this situation, by quasars' knitted tails! Have I done all this for nothing? Cannot the pathetic Star Command even trace one missing person?"

"Uhh... please try to relax, there", Zeb shook his head in the vid screen. One time in this galaxy he had confronted a man who was a million times more powerful than he in his rigour. Everyone else he was able to smother with his austerity and authority, but not Zora Lightyear.

"Krghgrrrgghhhh..." Zurg creaked his teeth together. "One, two, three, four, five, six..." Attempting to use the old mantra of calming-down, namely the counting to ten, he gradually got the smoke of hatred somewhat whiter.  "Ahh... where were we... Yes, now shall you tell me, WHAT is hindering you there in Trade World?"

"There's some kind of new mafia opposing us. Our hands are almost tied because of that, because that planet is not completely under our control."

"A mafia? Some puny pathetic mafia is putting whole Star Command into a brain pod? Listen you pathetic minions over there when the Evil Emprr... ah, excuse me..." Exhaling deep, Zurg wiped sweat off his forehead. "I am sorry, I should not get inflamed like this", he apologised Nebula, "...however, one mafia should not be an obstacle. I am expecting that you shall bring my son back so that he can be healed."

"That's easier said than done. If we had Team Lightyear on job, I bet they could find their Captain in no time. But they're there guaranteeing your safety."

Thus the conversation was drawn to its end. Taking a little mirror and comb, Zora began to trim his coiffure that had gone a bit messy, because he had nearly been ripping his hair off under the huff.

"Uh-uh, what would Smoopsiepoo say if she saw my glorious hair like this?" Taking some gel, he spread it across his thick, black locks. Finishing the whole show, he checked out that the long sideburns were perfectly in positions.

Darkmatter gave a guffaw as the response, "Weren't ya worrying about your sonny? Now you're suddenly more interested in your hairdo!"

"Darkmatter. Never underestimate the impression of a perfectly-done combing. Have I not taught you to check out the harmonious balance of the hair at least every ten minutes from a mirror? That was one of the first things I advised you to learn at the very beginning of your apprentice times."

Outside the tent, a shady figure was pricking up his ears. It was crouching between the canvas and a huge water barrel, hidden from the extraneous eyes.

"Well well! This turns out to be like really interesting..." the shadow thought, a wide grin revealing his teeth. "I bet Na-Vetta's gonna pay pretty good bucks about this... Buzz Lightyear _really is_ Zora Lightyear's son! At least ev'ryone can get that out of that conversation, if equipped at least with a li'l wit..."

Reparing a bit his spying position, Puu-Cee continued his clandestine actions. However, an intense interjection got him wince. 

"Cadet Huuhkaja! What are you doing?" Ranger Kaadu stood behind him, hands on hips.

"Ah... ehhehe-hee... I was just... eh..." So that Kaadu did not notice, the lurker kicked one of the tent pegs so that it came unstuck. "Ah... lookie, I saw this one loose peg here and thought I'd put it back..." Puu-Cee nervously smirked.

"Hmm... alright, but I won't spot you the second time here behind this tent. Is that clear?" Kaadu snorted.

"Sure, sure!" Hence the spy slinked away like some weasel.

Knocking the marquee door, Kaadu then decided to report about this oddity to the travel leader.

"Yes, come in", came the answer.

"Look, Mister Lightyear. I just shooed Puu-Cee Huuhkaja away from behind your tent. I think that man was spying you," the ranger announced.

Shaking his head, Zurg grunted, "I have noticed the certain sedition that has reigned during the return travel. I shall not tolerate that. We have had setbacks, but indeed the peace must stay as it has been this far. I shall take that ranger into an apostrophe tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Sir. It's my watch. I'll keep it clear that nothing happens in the small hours." The ranger left, zipping back the tent door.

Inside there, Zurg collapsed to sit on the bed. "Cursed coronas! Shall nothing prosper in this universe? My Son is in the dark side, Star Command seems to have learned its detective skills with the aid of a postal course, and now this... as if the whole galaxy is going to drop itself onto my head!" The old man clenched his fists.

First thing on the morning, before the breakfast and loading was Zurg's grave speech for the whole camp. He managed to hammer at least some sense into the heads of the rangers, so that the worst grouses stopped. But scolding Puu-Cee, or trying to inquire what he had been snuffing behind the tent, did not give any results. He only whined something back, pretending to be completely innocent. And that harsh address of the leader only made this unsound ranger hate him more. So, the haul was even better for the botanist to find out all kinds of monsters in the closets.

---------------------------

---Somewhere in Killersville------

"The meeting of the Imperial Council is now opened." A knock of a little wooded hammer hitting the table told that something pivotal was going on. But when the aliens around a long table were examined further, someone might have gotten his feet, tentacles or wheels rapid with fear. All kinds of evil-looking creatures sprawled in their chairs, some of them fiddling papers decorated with the Imperial insignia 'LZ', or making little model aeroplanes out of them. At the gable of the table sat the well-known Mister Overlord. A vehement regard in his eyes, he ordered the fellows to draw together their attention. These rabbles were Buzz Lightyear's loyal henchmen.

"Citizens of Z Empire! We have gathered here to negotiate about the glorious future of the raising, new reign! I, Lord Zenith, have decided to heave up the once-so-majestic Zurgean rule from the grey ashes, where it has been sunken!" Buzz knocked the hammer once again.

"Cool!"

"Yay!" 

"Yippee!" came some miscellaneous whoops from the side of the scum.

A complacent smirk drew Buzz' mouth from ear to ear. "Ahh... I see loyality around me, that's excellent! And now, to the brilliant purpose of this meeting! The conquering of the Galactic Alliance. We will deliberate how to do that."

More enthusiastic yells answered,

"Let's build a Death Star and blam Capital Planet to ions!"

"No, let's build a Death Star and make Star Command HQ go kaboom!"

"Let's like build a giant shower and drown all the idiots on Capital Planet!"

"No, let's take a black hole and bring it near Capital Planet and suck it in there!"

A meditating expression shadowing Zenith's face, he listened carefully to every suggestion.

"Excellent this far, citizens. But, we cannot destroy Capital Planet, since how will its citizens become the peoples of our magnificent Empire?"

The same scoundrel choir answered,

"Oh, yeah..."

"Too bad. There would've come a cool boom-boom!"

Lazily Torque, who was sitting near Buzz, raised up his hand.

"Yes, Imperial Advisor Torque. What is your proposition?"

"Alright, lis'n babies... Straight action plus some cunningness. That's the deal, baby. What if I'll take a bunch of these guys and infiltrate the Capital, get the baby president an' we'll arrest her. Other folks go to smash Star Command, or at least make a nice bonfire outta that baby."

Zenith smacked his lips a couple of times, staring at the furthest corner of the room for a few seconds, "This has been the best scheme this far. I'll take this into the most serious consideration. Then we do have the second problem. How to bring my Father Zurg back to his throne." These last syllables, again articulated with the huskiest and sternest voice he could find, caused actual fear among the council members. Although the Alliance had been able to take the lands of Zeta Quadrant into its supervision now, Zurg had still his reputation. Nothing faded the darkness and malevolence that furthermore floated around this notorious name.

"Uhh..."

"Umh..."

"Yeah..." the near twenty aliens in the room began to leer at the floor lightly scared.

A deadly silence filled the dusky, purple chamber for a while. No one had a piece of asteroid crater to pronounce, how to put the Emperor back to his seat. But Buzz' brains had for once buzzed, although his wit cannot be called the most bright in this universe.

"Ah, of course!" His interjection awakened the rest from their dreams. "We'll do it like this. We'll form three armies. One for Capital Planet, one for Star Command, and one for my purpose. While your Lord is on his way to search for your Emperor, the other two troops do their tasks, as the Imperial Advisor here suggested", he pointed at the space biker.

Actually, Buzz was completely aware of what happened on Isgurda and beyond. His minions had wiretapped the frequencies of Star Command and found an algorithm to decode the encrypted messages. So, he knew where Zurg was, and what his commissions were. If Zenith wanted to pick him up, it would mean arranging a travel to the winter planet with appropriate armament. And now it seemed that the destiny of the Alliance was decided here in this Imperial Summit. Besides, what came to destroying that mighty space ranger base orbiting Capital Planet, it had the same major weakness as in the days of Zenith's residence on Planet Z. The shield frequencies were furthermore the same... and the lunatic knew them by letter.

In every case, the conclusion was followed by cheerful shouts. Torque was pleased to hear that he would be promoted to Imperial Military Commander (A note about his cloning abilities: the engineer grubs had not been able to restore the powers of his cloning device. So it was quite useless.). All the ramshackle riff-raff swarming around Buzz would be thus under his order, except Zenith's Imperial Stormtroopers and that the latter man had of course the supreme authority.

"Excellent, excellent. So I close this meeting. Lord Zenith has spoken." A click of the hammer was the sign that the skunks were able to get back to their own businesses. It would be decided later, when the Day of Attack would happen.

...to be continued...


	12. A revolt attacks Isgurda

Thus... one unfortunate dawn on Isgurda... It was an early morning; the whole camp had just finished their breakfasts and began to load the equipment back onto the burden animals. Two days there would be dragging and sweating towards the ships, if the accomplishment would ever be written into the log. Only two days. The hard travel would finally be over... at least there were not much food supplies left in case of delays. The fatigued men under the pressure wanted all this to end... It was also the last change for Na-Vetta to reveal his beliefs. Before and during the breakfast, he had been gossiping to every camp member -except to those around Zora- about the identities and hidden mysteries. Ultimately his evidence was collected, he was gravely assured what he was tattling. Eyes wide open in bafflement his listeners had tilted their heads back and forth under the influence of the tales. That friendly, maybe a bit gruff, tall man would be Evil Emperor Zurg? Yes, it sounded impossible and ridiculous, but the boosted words were full of sangfroid. So...  now part of the wayfarers stopped their loading work, beginning to walk on the heels of this lanky botanist.  

Grumbling those rangers that followed him still shook their heads to the claims.

"He cannot be right."

"I dunno... he seems to have proves on his side. Let's just see what happens and decide it then."

Thus the male with his twisted schemes had taken the lead. Zora, the Darkmatters, and Booster were currently attaching some water barrels on a brytare's back in a light snowfall. Warp was launching some easy-going jokes, and the team's attention did not get aimed to the approaching persons.

"Emperor Zurg!" a jeer unexpectedly broke their commissions. Startling, without more thinking, Zora abruptly turned his head towards the hollo, putting a couple of slipshod syllables into the game, "Yes, what...?"

The fierce laugh of Na-Vetta made Lightyear's face get distorted. "Look! He ADMITS it himself! He turns about when he's called with his real name! The man you have trusted to be your loyal, virtuous leader, is _Evil Emperor Zurg_! Himself!"

Terrified mumble and some scared yelps fled from the throats of the rangers behind the botanist.

"Oh my goodness!"

"Na-Vetta was right! Craters, we have been in the hands of a criminal all the time!"

"But that can't be Zurg, he's dead!"

What had occurred among the innocent packers, it was as chaotic. The old man had gotten on his legs in complete welter; Warp had dropped a box of electronic devices onto the snow. "Quasars!" was the only very descriptive thing he could utter.

"Look! There he is! With his evil henchman Warp Darkmatter! Didn't anyone of you ever pay attention to how well that blue bastard comes along with that menace? That man right there," an insane hatred burning in the botanist, he shook his fist towards his objects, "That man right there killed my family! And has anyone of you ever been without any loss from his side? Maybe a fellow ranger, your brother, your cousin... died in the hands of that swine? Huh?"

Putting the arms in front of him in defence, Zurg began to stammer, "I... I am not..."

"Yes you are! Don't try to deny it! I have been spying you and know every little piece about your doings in this camp! What is it with the freaking zeta-letters in every place you stick your stinking nose into? Have to decorate everything with your evil symbol, isn't that the name of the game, huh?" the howl came back, as Na-Vetta step by step approached the Emperor.

Now Darkmatter jumped in the middle, "Quasars, what the heck is this trying to be? Now stop this nonsense and get back to your works!"

"Oh, trying to defend your master, aren't we?" the lanky scientist took a spiteful grin, "Only more proves."

"Look, I am NOT any Emperor Zurg, I..." hastily Zora added to Warp's sentence. Well, this was not a clear lie, since he had lost his throne and taken his old name back.

On the other side of the encampment, the row had woken up Mira and XR's heed. As well the other men that were not present in Na-Vetta's backtroops, made fast strides towards the venue.

"What the craters is the hubbub over there, now? We were supposed to leave this site and get back to the ships in schedule", Mira half-worried accelerated her pace.

"Sounds like a revolt for me," the robot commented, "I just wonder why they're yelling something about Zurg over there."

Nova's eyes grew wide as she instantly understood what the state of affairs was, "Great Tangean ancestors! This may be a red alert. I truly hope that Lightyear has not been revealed!" Activating her jetpack, the princess took a fast flight right in the middle of the war field.

The status had become much more strained. Not listening to Zora's or Warp's objections, the sedition had percolated also into the followers of the botanist. Furious spats flying in the air, they had started to besiege the little site where the brytare, the ex-villains, Zarah and Booster were. The little woman also attempted to put in her expostulations, but her a bit hoarse voice was muffled by the blind war cries. The Jo-Adian therefore, was completely perplexed. He almost only stood there, stirring and watching the semi-circle of those men getting closer. Everyone entrusted now Na-Vetta's sayings, seeing how his cunningly plotted plan had made Zora unwillingly reveal his true self.

"Isn't it obvious, that he is that cursed Emperor? And let me tell you something else! He's actually Buzz Lightyear's FATHER!" this, the ultimate exposure of the botanist, made everyone around gasp in horror.

"Yes, he is! And what is really Buzz Lightyear, the so-called Pride of Star Command? He has turned evil. And that's a real testimony of his ancestry, no wonder he's like that, if Zurg himself is the daddy! Who knows, maybe this 'trip' has been just some kind of cover operation for him to get his empire back. His son can break havoc on the other side, while the attention of the universe has been turned to follow the course over here. Yes, of course we have a plant in our hands that is supposed to heal up someone. But there are no guaranteed studies, yet, about the efficiency of this herb." Keeping a couple of seconds pause to breath in, the scientist continued to screech from behind his warming mask, truculently, "Puff... no real evidence, not even in the studies I've done this far! All it seems that this whole trip has been just some kind of trick to cheat the whole Alliance, so that Buzz Lightyear could freely plot his evil things behind everyone's backs! He may be already on Planet Z, building back the Empire, and when this freaking travel is supposed to be over, that damned sick Emperor..."

Of course Na-Vetta was not aware of what Buzz truly was intriguing. But this brilliant guess did throw the dart near the bull's eye.

At the instant, Mira landed. Taking an attacking pose towards the 'rebels', she determinedly shouted, "Now stop right there that stupid act and return to your works! This expedition is arranged in the authority of Star Command, you know it well, everyone! It is your commanding officer Zeb Nebula, who has signed the permission for this trip, not any Zurg."

"Ahh, so you are in the same coalition, Mira Nova. You're, because of a reason or another, protecting Zurg. Protecting the man _who has killed thousands and again thousands of innocent aliens in this universe!_  Why is he worth of such defending, unless this famous Team Lightyear has a part in his evil businesses!" Na-Vetta's insults responded.

"You get back to your order, now!" Mira waved her hand, "Ranger Munchapper, separate those."

"She is a part of that scheme!" came a comment from somewhere.

"So, what are we going to do a person like Zurg? Do we let him live? After what he has done to this galaxy, to our poor families?" the botanist instead flung his arm as if to make an attack order.

"Kill Zurg!"

"Yeah! We will make our revenge! Capture that cursed creature!"

"No, just kill him!"

Booster took heavy steps towards the fierce aliens, as Mira had ordered. So did XR, making a small barricade in front of Zurg, Warp and Zarah. Indecisiveness was the guest of the blockaded. None of them could really have expected anything like this. Darkmatter had a few times warned Zurg not to be too open with his gesticulation and somewhat supervise his speech, but that the situation would end up to a tense chaos like this... that had not been predictable. And not only the old man was in danger, but everyone else protecting him.

Yet, some movement had happened in Na-Vetta's troops, after Mira had banged some sense into the snowfields. Rangers Kaadu and Ronto had turned to defend Zora, but still the majority was on Na-Vetta's side. However, no one at the moment spotted one rebel ranger, who had lurked at the side of the pursued ones. His wrist laser ready, he aimed his arm right towards Lightyear... who was completely unable to defend himself anyhow, since not possessing any weapons. Nonetheless, Warp's sensitive eyes noticed some abrupt movement in their furthest corners.

"Look out!" he yelped, jumping right on Zurg to hinder the laser blast hitting him. The ranger had missiled, but missed the main target, as Darkmatter had toppled the ex-emperor on the snow. But completely fruitless the well-aimed shot had not been. Feeling burning scorch in his left flank, Warp understood that a laser ray had gone through his suit. XR flashed around, firing with a stun frequency towards the nemesis, however not hulling. The abrupt action from the mecha's side made the rifleman so much scared that he did not have the courage to try again.

"Cease the fire, craters!" Nova interjected, "Space rangers are not allowed to hurt other rangers! You, who think that this mutineer botanist is your leader, are acting against your regulations!"

But were there many auditors? Moreover, as seeing the two targets of common hatred lying on the ground, trying to get up, the triumph grew among Na-Vetta's supporters.

"Look! Let's attack, they can be defeated!"

"Yes, kill Zurg! Kill Zurg!"

A new stampede struck. What was a way to get out of that trap? No one listened to Mira or anyone else of Team Lightyear. Moreover, the dark rangers (Excuse the author because of this expression, but she cannot call them 'dark jedi' either.) began swiftly to tune their wrist lasers.

"Oh, blast..." XR uttered, "This gets waa-ay too heated. Soon melts the snow. We gotta get our legs and arms out of here, and quickly!"

"Activate your jets! The only way is to fly out of here!" Zarah gave a scream. She had previously been casting her eyes towards Warp to see what was his state. Notwithstanding of the handicap he had, he was bravely already on the feet, pushing the jetpack activator button. (A shot caused by a laser ray burns the tissues together, that is why it does not cause bleeding.) He had quite much wrench because of the hit, but he would soon been a dead man, if not instantly leaving the spot.

Hence the new-type refugees were in the air. Zurg spurted on the fore, shielded by Booster. Warp was the next one to hop up towards the skies, before that however turning his biotic arm into a glue blaster. Choi-X-glue was in efficient use, as it with no actual hurt gummed a couple of those revolting back there completely stuck into that pink mess the arm generated. Laser beams whizzed back towards the runaways, answering to Darkmatter's little surprise. And also a whoop was heard from back there, "Get those now! Those who can, go after them immediately!"

Thrill in the air. Team Lightyear with their companion Ronto and Kaadu were covering the others, who accelerated upwards. They had to find an appropriate altitude where they could fly, so that they would not hit rocks or ice projections in the narrow defile. Behind there, the enemies had switched their own engines on, firing back and approaching the altitudes. Team Lightyear with their troupe had now caught up some tens of metres. Zarah, the most newbie in flying with a jetpack, had some trouble to maintain her balance. In her Xanedian suit, the jets had been more modern, equipped with balance regulators, turbo-boost nanoaccelerators and an advanced landanah-based energy source (less jumpy in the start-ups). In Mira's space costume, the gear was rougher. She had thus somewhat hard to get into a right direction, as the obstacle-dodging was barely possible. Warp saw from his front-line position that she was straggling badly.

"Babe!" making a prompt u-turn, he decided to go to help her. Not so nicely thinking about her flying skills he muttered, "I shoul've taken her into my arms from the first cratery moment on. She's getting killed with that aerial know-how."

Nevertheless, her mighty abilities had already caused a bad turn. As she was trying to evade a large ledge in the left and accelerate rightwards, in the narrow up-pass, she smashed right onto the big snow heap in the right.

"Ouch!" came the notice. Zarah had not hurt herself anyhow, only got a bit dizzy for a fraction of space-timeline. But what happened to the big snow-ice pile jutting on the stone shelf... it flopped off from its home, onto the next shelf beneath it. And that mass, boosted now with even more snow, began to roll down in a huge rage. Taking some pebbles, ice clods and more of that white mess with it, a medium-sized avalanche was ready to strain down. Choi had gotten her equilibrium back, heading towards Warp. In addition, what happened to the snow slide she had so nicely created... it mashed right on the heads of the chasers.

Astonished Darkmatter achieved his mate in some tens of metres' distance. "H-how did ya do that? I thought ya hurt yourself!"

"Uh-uff... well I did see spinning stars for a while, but nothing else... I guess my usual clumsiness was finally canalized to be something useful..." Choi puzzled glanced over her shoulder. The highway of the fox-hunters had ended up to a little deadlock (although no one was dead).

"Great job! Now let's get on! That snow will keep the foe quiet for awhile and we get some lead!" Mira yelled from farther up there.

"We shall try to head to our ships. That is the only choice, now", Zurg gravely responded. "So, this is where the trip ended. My fault, again, is it not? Darkmatter was right. I am too open. How could I have assumed that someone would turn against me, _me_? Maybe it was... maybe it was me, who revealed myself. How can I withhold manners I have had the last thirty years... And I shall not understand furthermore why all have this hatred towards Z-letters. They are so glorious!" he pondered while flinging forwards. Zurg was soon snatched away from his bitter thoughts, as Ronto advised that some acceleration should be done. For the while, Mira opened up a comm. link with her wrist communicator straight to Star Command HQ. There was a little hope that they might get some help from there to their nearly evident stalemate.

"Coming Star Command, Ranger Mira Nova speaking! Mayday, mayday, help needed immediately on Planet Isgurda, Iskallth System, coordinates Theta Quadrant, sector 39-beta-iota. Coming, Star Command, do you copy?"

The flabbergasted face of Commander Nebula were without delay in the little vid-screen of her wrist gadget, "What? Mayday? Ranger Nova? What is happening, there?"

"Sir, we need enforcements, at once! A mutiny happened here, and a pack of rangers is chasing us in order to kill. We are too few left to oppose them, Darkmatter has been shot and Lightyear is unarmed."

"Oh, craters..." was the only rag Nebula could produce, "H-hold on! I try to send you troops... craters, the nearest patrols are at a day's journey distance! Oh, great supercraters!"

Cold sweat began to trickle down Nova's neck despite that she was an inured ranger, had faced death, dense battles and very close shaves during her career. However, this time there was a lot in the game. "Cannot you find any cruisers nearer? We run out of time! We may be able to hold the threat for a while, but not too long!"

"Keep the link open, ranger. I have now sent commands to the nearest patrols so that they are on their way. Try to keep it up, there", the at least as nervous Zeb encouraged from the other side of the ether.

"Craters, we try! But all our equipment is gone, we have no food, no water, only ourselves..." only then the Princess remembered tha-grydda. "Oh, no! The herb, it's now left..." Notwithstanding her expression delighted somewhat, as she heard Zora's hollow voice gloating,

"That is the all we have! Jim-kraken-dandy at least that is left!" the old man patted a thermal bag he had hanging around his middle body. "Shall you think the mighty Zurg would be that stupid as all the pathetic mortals that he would trust anyone as much as himself? I have a good portion of the herb here in hermetic packages!"

"Great!" Nova responded, "Now keep flying. We should reach the ships in a few hours with jetpack speed."

Na-Vetta's troops gradually untangled their avalanche mess. A couple of those dark rangers had gotten minor handicaps, but not anything that could prevent them from continuing the pursuit. Behind a good distance, some men were again flying with their jets and attempting to figure out where their preys had slinked. The remained ones, who were still on the bottom of the gorge with the brytares and all the luggage, continued the loading. They would carry on the normal promenading with the animals towards the mouth, while those others would nab the unlucky ones.

...to be continued...


	13. Obscure horizons

  
  


13. Obscure Horizons

---In space, not so far away------

A fleet of miscellaneous, different-sized, -coloured, and -modelled space ships were silently approaching in the canvas of stars. If someone had composed music for this view, there would have been kettledrums and trumpets playing a march... an imperial march. That was the squadron of Lord Zenith, moving slowly towards its target. The trip from Trade World had been started for a while ago, the purpose of it being to collect Zurg from that ice planet. The preparations were done for arctic travelling, what explained the number of members in this grouping of vehicles. On the beak of the whole play, was Zenith's Imperial flagship, majestically leading its minions.

Again on his behalf, Buzz was doing almost nothing, only gave some orders, cackled like Zurg and lied out-stretched on a divan in his private rooms. He had a pile of confections on a table and a glass of some expensive drink beside it. By that way, with those eating habits and the lack of physical exercise, his six-pack would start to resemble Michelines, if he would not understand to quit.

As he was sprawling there in his evil peace, a private comm. message approached him. By pressing a button on the remote control, a face appeared in front of him, in the holo-transmitter installed on the wall. This interesting envelope was from Torque.

"Greetings, Torque. Have you arrived into your destination?" Buzz asked.

"Yeah, baby. Capital Planet is under our feet. We're like checking out the situation so that we can like nicely infiltrate baby President's palace..." a smug answer came back.

"Ahh, brilliant! This..." Lightyear began.

"Sir, your gorgonzola plate with oolated squiggs!" a whiny little voice broke the sentence. A grub had appeared into the room, with another high-fat snack.

"You know that your Master doesn't like to be interrupted!" Zenith gave a dark goggle at the lackey, continuing then, "What was I going to say...? Ah, yes! Brilliant! The galaxy will be soon in my hands, hargh harr wahah groh muaahhaaahr hgrrr... urgh!" the malevolent laugh turned to hackles. The beetle scampered to give a hit on his lord's back. After thirty seconds of coughing, Buzz gained back his speech. "Uhh... I haven't practised that laughter enough, yet. But I truly want to learn to do it like my Father does! But, I won't let this one setback dispirit me, craters, I will learn that magnificent laugh one day perfectly!"    

"Good luck, Lordy baby! We continue our stuff here", the five-eyed alien concluded his news and disappeared from the channel.

"And you! Ask the cook to make me a big chocolate sorbet with strawberry crisps, and one piña colada" Zenith commanded the servant insect. Opening up an intranet link, he gave instructions for the ships to jump into hyperspace. "We have to progress on our glorious travel."

Truly, the destiny of the Alliance was in the scales. Lord Zenith had made his final move, sending his minions to attack insidiously both Capital Planet and Star Command's important bases.

------------------

After two hours of fast low-flight, Team Lightyear and their companion had finally achieved the site where the ships had been parked two and half months ago. Sad sight was there to wait for them, as the numerous blizzards and storms had entombed every single vessel almost utterly. The roof side of 42 peeped a little from under a snow mountain.

"Oh, great! We are in the middle of an assassinator flight and the ships have turned to popsicles!" Warp cursed under his breath, rubbing his aching flank.

"No problemo when XR's on the job!" the robot sung self-confident. This irritated Mira, who had no idea why the android suddenly was so cheerful.

"Now what? Don't you start to praise yourself when we try to figure out how to get into that ship!"

"Don't worry, brave citizens and princesses! XR has just the right means to solve the situation! Ta-da and Kazam!" As always, the little mecha had a thingamajig for a dense cul-de-sac problem. He drew out of his inners something that looked like a giant hair dryer and began to melt the snow with it from around the star cruiser.

"Quasars, that's handy! Why don't I have one of those in my arm? I could use it also for both drying me an' my babe's hair!" Darkmatter astonished the efficacy of this gadget. Some minutes went, and the air lock in the hull was visible. The additional whatever-widget the LGMs had on an undetermined day crammed inside the robot, transported the snow into another pile some metres further, by vaporizing the water molecules and giving them some kinetic energy. Thus they solidified only but after a small distance.      

Anyhow, the indispensable door into the ship was able to be seen. XR's miracle-medium had also removed all the ice layers from the joints, so the gateway opened up swiftly. And... without this kind of aid, the exiles would have been merely plucked chickens. The dark rangers flew strict behind there, although no one could spot them.

Inside the common cruiser, Mira sat in the main pilot chair, beginning to start the engines. From the upper corner of the windshield, was gleaming some sun rays, the other parts of the window were covered with frost and layers of snow.

"Hopingly our last hope will be the best hope... craters, if this won't work..." Nova flapped.

"Oh, n-no... what are we gonna do if it won't?" Booster was even a more pain in the neck.

XR, again in full action, attached a cable cord from his inners to check out the health state of the ship. "Ah, everything seems to be A-okay. The baby has only a bit cold." And the low roar of the gravitation-generator chanting together with the jets made every alien and robot being sigh in relief.

"Alright, the seats are not enough. Ranger Kaadu, will you sit in the co-pilot?" Mira gesticulated to the man. "You others have to find a place in the gally or anywhere else. And take Darkmatter to the medical treatment."

"Sure, Ranger Nova..."the man of speech scratched his neck. However, one more inquire came from Mira's direction.

"Uh... how did you rangers actually decide that you'd be on our side?"

This made both Ronto and Kaadu leer confused at the floor.

"Umm... we kind of thought that... if Team Lightyear would be protecting someone like that..." Ronto took an embarrassed glance at Zora, "Even if he was... uh... _Zurg_..."

"Ehm... so, excuse me, but are you _really_... eh... Zurg?" Kaadu eyed furthermore the old man, who had an amused expression.

The Emperor chuckled hollowly, "I am. Actually I am. But..." the tone changed severely, "I have tried to reform. I can tell you later about my life story, if you wish to hear. Now as you know my identity, it does not matter if I tell."

The laborious escape began. 42 dived up from the snow, accelerating away from the planet of terrors. Could anyone have expected such a dramatic jump in the course of happenings? Everyone had had a certain kind of impression, that the journey would have been hazardous, but that in such measures... as if the whole winter planet would have been in the claws of some evil daemons, who wanted everyone to get destroyed if someone dared to step on the notorious surface. Although... Emperor Zurg was truly a risky person. Even an amoeboid would plot revenge on this kind of former monster. Only very few there were those that would be able to forgive such atrocities, based on a few words of regretting. Even Zarah -after gazillions of nightmares about what she had once experienced in his hellish chambers- had indeed had difficulties to remit something like that. Now... the snow inferno was leaving behind... and meanwhile, the chasers prepared to dig their ships out.

"Beep... beep... beep..."

Rubbing some sleep dust away from her tacky eyes, Mira glanced absent-mindedly at the console. The radar indicator was in action, a green light blinking in it.

"Uff... XR, will you check out the scanner, there's some activity in the near hyperspace..." she interposed. "We got our full warp speed on, if the causer is Na-Vetta's troops..." some life streamed into her, as she thought about the hazard. Actually... despite last night's sleep, everyone in 42 was very fatigued. Reasons for this were the wasting fear, and the physical wrist-wrestling they had had on Isgurda.

"Let's see... nope. Star Command cruiser density null. There is a large group of ships approaching us, though... what the drizzling diodes? There's a _Zurgean CZ-3-type star cruiser_ playing a hummingbird in the first line!" XR responded, scratching his helmet.

"What?" Kaadu raised his brows. "But the Empire is..."

"Yes. Call the others from the gally. We may have some problems, here."

"Yeppies... those other birds indicate to be collected from spare parts. There's at least one TIE interceptor, Geonosian solar sailer, something that looks like a bonsai version of _Enterprise_ from the b-class space opera _Star Wreck_... usch, that kind of flying junkyard must origin from Trade World, wherever else?"

"Wait, wait, did you say trade world? Didn't... Buzz go there?" Booster understood.

However... the secrets started to be revealed, after Zurg with his company had stepped into the cockpit. For Team Lightyear, as well as for those unknown, it had been obligatory to jump into the normal space from the warp speed, since the current wormholes would have begot a nasty collision. As the Einsteinian universe was again present, a query came through the normal palpation channel, addressed to 42. This message originated from that cagey fleet. 

"Greetings, rangers of Star Command. This is Dark Lord Zenith speaking. Surrender now, and I will spare your lives."

The whole population on the command deck went silent. Everyone recognised the voice crackling in the link; it belonged to the missing Captain.

"Is... is that _Buzz_?" Booster piped a little.    

But before no one had the instance to answer the enquiry, Zurg had tapped at the console and taken the microphone into his hand. "Quasars, Buzz! What are you kid thinking over there?" his grave, voice scolded, "You shall stop those naïve games, instantly."

But Zenith responded quite in another way. The tone in the comm. link was rejoicing, nevertheless still spiced up with the insanity, "Father! Is that you, Father? I have found you! I'm coming to get you!"

"Come to get me? From where? What the rotting carrot asteroids are you plotting over there?" Zora did not get his signal delivered, since the channel had suddenly been shut down from the other side. "Buzz? Do you hear me?" he banged the console in rave.

A little chaos had struck in the star cruiser. Team Lightyear grasped merely nothing, neither did the less-known rangers. Only Warp and Zurg were even with the intergalactic clock.

"What's this all about? Why...?" Mira started.

"What, why? Do not ask. I know what and why. Quasars, that is Buzz and he is calling himself with the Zurgean name I once gave him. That boy acts _just like I expected to happen_, when I gave the orders to close him into that mental hospital. Cannot you see, he leads that pile of junk ships thinking that he is some ruler of the universe!" Zurg roared. "But that I do not understand why he was so cheerful after hearing that I am over here. The last time I met him face to face, he expressed dark enmity towards me."

Gaping at the storming man, Team Lightyear could do much nothing to stop the happenings rolling forwards. The TIE fighters that had been flying right behind the flagship, disengaged themselves from their positions, approaching now 42.

"Aren't those gonna attack us? Shouldn't we..." Ronto began, but was hushed by the ex-dark lord.

"No. They shall not attack, only come to imprison us. And we cannot do opposition. Do not try to call Nebula for help, we are under the force field of that head ship. It kills all the radio frequency transfers."

"But what..."

"Hmph. So that is what has become of my son? All this time, assumingly, he has been gathering forces around himself on Trade World. In that mental condition he is, I would not amaze if he has sworn to conquer the Milky Way! He has named himself Lord Zenith and that can only mean things like that. He wants power. He wants glory. He wants dark glory." His brown eyes staring at the shadows, Zurg monotonically muttered.

"So... was he the head of the mafia Commander Nebula kept talking about?" Nova sighed.

"Exactly. Never he mentioned his name, but who else is it than Buzz Lightyear? Quasars."

The magnetic grid of the Zurgean vessel pulled 42 towards itself, while five smaller bombers surrounded it, hindering every possible endeavour to flee. As being more minor than the Dreadnaught, Buzz' vehicle could not swallow the cruiser like its big momma had usually done. But there were other measures to angle the fish. As the star cruiser was near enough the menace, there came a tentacle-like metal tube whooshing from Zenith's craft and attached itself right onto the airlock of 42, so that the joints were completely airtight, too. Then... sounds of melting metal, as a laser beam gradually sawed the door open. After that measure, a couple of grubs, blasters in their hands, came marching in.

"Drop your weapons!" one of them beeped.

"What? Those li'l creepy-crawlies?" Warp astonished.

"What would you expect, Darkmatter?" Zora gave a snort, "Of course Zenith shall make his quarters as if he would still be living on Planet Z. So once did you."

"No backtalk! Follow us!" one bug interjected, gesticulating with his gun.

"Now what the heck are we going to do? We were supposed to escape those rebelling rangers and we end up to the same soup with some Mini-Zurg?" XR tilted his head.

Jostling the robot a little with his boot, Zora whispered, "We shall figure out something."

Thus the refugees were forced to step into the tube that leaded straight into the mother ship. And right at the moment, Na-Vetta's troops dived away from the hyperspace. They had pursued 42's energy traces right over here, encountering now quite a surprise. Nevertheless... evil did not ally with evil, this time. Zenith's fighters flew to surround those newcomers instead, capturing also the aliens inside them. With some kind of trick it was clarified to the grubs, that the secondly arrived wanted to harm a certain elder Lightyear. And... this particular detail caused anger.

The group leaded by Zurg was divided into two parts, namely to this one sole man and the rest. Ion blasters on the heels, the latter part was guided to have a sightseeing in the prison. But the tall man, he was escorted by a few beetles, and brought into a lobby of some kind. At the rear end of that charmingly purple room was a round door, decorated with the old Imperial symbol. Buzz had called for his father, given instructions to bring the person straight to him. As that had been the whole purpose of the fleet's passage, would he leave now his relative to lounge in the dungeons? No.     

 The guards left Zurg to stand at the door-entrance of Zenith's imperial chamber. Because of some whim of luck, no one had overhauled much his carryings. As he had no weapons, either, no property had been taken away from him. He protected the thermal bag as if it was some new-born baby. A lackey had opened it, though, but had not been much absorbed to goggle at mussepiggum-alloy transparent jars where were buoying some grass in icky-looking slime. Tha-grydda was at least still saved. 

Now the Emperor let his regard wander across the room, from corner to corner. Where had he come? To his ancient throne room? The decorations were almost exactly the same. In the large, sinking divan, at the back wall, was lying his son on his back, a remote control of a large holo-telly in his hand.

"Ahh, so you have come", the loon man noticed the in-come persons. Rising up from his seat, he towed his long robes in the middle floor. Making a small bow, he crossed his fingers, "Greetings, Father!"

Zurg stared at this whole circus in bewilderment. Now his son wanted to talk to him openly, in the first time in epochs? But in what kind of state? "Quasars, where has he dragged that outfit from? Buzz is dressed like I was in my _dark padawan_ times... but I must admit that crimson passes him very well..." he thought meanwhile the custodians were commanded.

"You can go, now. Father, will you join my company?" Lightyear tapped to a small table, beginning to fill two glasses with moola-requiring drink.

The old man stayed speechless, furthermore. Actually, he could not find a statement to describe his feelings. He had had no idea that Buzz' insanity would go this far. But the dark side was powerful, powerful...

"Father, why I have brought you here... it's a long-reflexed decision of my mind. I have forgiven you what you have done to me... you should know that a good Father never treats his Son like that, by arresting him to a prison with no reason. But I have forgiven that..." Zenith hummed somewhat absent-mindedly, as his brains were concentrated on thinking what he could at next produce out of his vocal cords. Shifting his blue eyes now up to face Zurg's brown ones, he continued more sharply, "I have seen and understood that the dark side still exists in you. And that it can be woken up, again. I must thank you for the things you so keenly taught me, when you still were my Master on Planet Z, preparing me to be the Prince of this mighty Empire..."

Zora stood quiet, the vine glass between his long, thin fingers. Nothing could be read from his eyes, they were like two black holes that only sucked the light around them. His face was completely expressionless, his lips immovable.

"...and thus, Father, I know that you are ready to step on the path of the dark side. I can see it from you. Oh, the power and wisdom were so strong in you, why did you ever decide to abandon them?" a sad tone spiced up now Buzz' speech. He took a gulp of the drink, asking Zurg to sit down.

"I am ready to receive the wisdom from you, again, Father, if you will use discretion and return... you must understand that your experience, knowledge and sapience are incomparable... this universe needs the balance. The harmonious balance of the darkness... ahh..."

The Emperor put down the cup from his hand. The red liquid was there untouched, furthermore. He only kept his dark eyes aimed at Buzz, seemingly carefully listening to his every declaration.

"Father, I have decided to build again the Zurgean Empire. That has been my dream, my fantasy since I comprehended the majesty and glory of the dark side. No other reign has ever been that majestic... and sadness has filled my heart as the majesty fell so dramatically..." Taking a tissue from the table, Lord Zenith sniffed his nose. His blaring, burning eyes then turned to his companion, a manic enthusiasm in his voice, "But from the ashes it will raise, again! The Zurgean Empire! The dark jewel of the Galaxy! And you, by my side, will rule as the new-crowned Emperor, and I as the heir of throne! I know, Father, that you will return, that you will walk the path of the dark side, again!  I have foreseen it, that you will! I have foreseen the new rise of the dark side, since its balance was disturbed. And you will rule again, as _the_ Emperor! Tell me, that you will! I'll help you, Father!"

Zurg's tedious glare did not answer.

Buzz drew his face closer to him, "I'll help you, Father! I'll help you get your throne back!" there was something begging in his eyes, behind that insane fire.

"Father... I know you want this, the dark side still exists in you. Don't let your mind get weak, again, don't waste your life by listening to the temptations of the Alliance! The universe is soon in our hands, Father!"

Zurg's expression very slowly changed, the corners of mouth twisting into some kind of an odd grin. The grooves on his cheeks deepened, his brows descending almost half over the eyes. That appearance was full of something cunning, also something that was not quite readable. "Mwa ha haha! Yes... I shall rule it all... again!" For the first time, Zurg opened his throat, leaving this deep laugh in the air. 

Buzz' eyes went wide of sudden amazement, "Father!"

"Yes, Son! I am the only and one Emperor. And now the pathetic Alliance is not there to stop neither one of us!" the tall man rose up from his seat. "Mwa ha ha, I have taught you well, my young apprentice. You have done all this by yourself, already..."

"Father! You have come back! You have come back to me!" tears of happiness filled Zenith's vision.

Giving an evil smirk, Zurg nodded, "Yes... who would ever escape the dark side? Ahh, it is a powerful ally, powerful ally... So, Son, how have you arranged our glorious future, this far? Should you not tell me?"

"Oh, Father!" Lightyear started to explain fluently, in the belief that he had now his father completely on his side, "I have allied with skilled henchmen! I have sent troops to conquer Capital Planet, while the others are attacking Star Command. They have not changed the defence shields since my starting life as your obedient apprentice. Torque, who you know very well, is infiltrating the President's palace for the moment. And I have built a magnificent, magnificent base on Trade World! _The Black Hole_ is our Imperial Headquarters, I have arranged it well!" His arms flinging in the air, he leaded Zurg towards a holo-monitor, where he had some connections going on. Indeed, his confidence to this just-in-brought man was nearly overflowing. Well, he saw his father in his eyes already as the returned Dark Lord.

"Ahh, that is Jim-kraken-dandy! Indeed, Zenith, you have proven your skills as the Prince of my Empire! And so we shall rule this galaxy like Father and Son!" the old man rubbed his fingers together. "Ahh... hahahahooo!"

The ebullient dark happiness filled Buzz' heart. Almost running to Zurg, he put his arms around his father's chest, hugging him tight, "Father! Ohh, I knew you would come back, I knew it! Father!"

Embracing back his son, Zora announced majestically, "I have! And I and you shall rule it all! Evil rules, gra ha mwa hahhaaah!"

"Sob... Sniff... You're the best Father ever!" Buzz snuffled.

However... mutely Zurg stretched his other arm towards the table where the wine bottle was standing. He was still hugging his crying scion with his other arm. But the long fingers of his right hand approached the neck of the bottle... and bang. Fragments of glass were flying in semi-circles in the air, the classy wine accompanying them, forming a fountain. Buzz fell limb onto the support of Zurg's left arm. The bottle had been hit broken onto his occiput.

Sighing deep, the elder Lightyear put the indolent to lie on the divan. "I am so sorry, so sorry for this... but this was my only choice", he muttered, "You cannot comprehend your own idiocy. You cannot comprehend what you have become. My poor son in the hands of the evilness. Wait... this is _worse_. He has truly become a lunatic. Definitely."

...to be continued...


	14. A dawn

14. A Dawn

What Zurg had done, was a clever play. With some shivers, he horrified how well he still was able to fill the role of that evil tyrant emperor, although it had been nothing but pretending.

"Now... what shall I do... ah, yes, call for help. That pathetic Commander... ah, put now the Zurg away in you. Commander Nebula's troops should be near. I only need to guide them here."

Knowing every detail by letter in this old spare ship of his, Zora was able to block the intranet frequencies and send a private, encrypted mayday to Star Command. The single peril there was that some by-passing lackey would hear his voice. But... he could possibly use the comatose Buzz as some kind of defence, if needed. But anyhow else he would not hurt his flesh and blood.

When he waited for the encryption code to shield up the channel, he went on thinking more, "Unbelievable... Buzz would have wanted _me_ to step back to the throne of Z Empire? Intriguing, indeed, if the reign would be different. If it would have happened in different circumstances... Maybe I still want glory, _but_ _not dark glory_. Those two expressions have a different meaning. A grievous and penetrating path away from the dark side I have walked, I shall not return to that. I want to forget the 'wisdom', with which my poor Son has messed up his puny not-so-witty brains. Oh, why did he not inherit the intelligence of his Father, but had to stay... as an _average_ boy? Well... to make a brilliant career in Star Command does not require quite much brainwork, I assume. Ah, I came to that conclusion already 25 years ago, so why bother to repeat it? Pathetic mortals gather only pathetic mortals around them."   

Zeb Nebula had had penetrating time-rushes already that day. Now he was to hear this news.

"Craters, when do the folks stop trying to conquer the galaxy?" the old ranger tilted his head back and forth in the other end of the comm. channel, as Zurg had briefly summarized the information. 

"Uh-uh... Star cruisers 79 and 133 are in two-hour distance, the others coming well back there. Just try to keep it cool over there... do anything you can, pretend that your son is having a nap... anything to keep the whatever-henchmen of this whatever-royal away from there... craters, I can't believe half a word you have explained about Buzz..."

"Look, it is not important to argue about my son. Quasars, I have told you about Torque. You shall order men to protect that puny idiot who calls herself the president... ah, excuse me... I mean Madame President... uh..." Zora felt the shimmer of shame reddening his cheeks.

Nebula could nothing but laugh nervously on the other side, "Reformed? Yeah, right. You never get rid of your Zurgism."

-------------------

As the star cruisers approached Zenith's Starfleet, the resistance was gone as soon as it was evident that someone had knocked the spinning rockets out of the mighty leader. Pretending that Buzz was his 'hostage', Zurg was free to command the fear-struck grubs. And they surely knew their old Master from that bellowing voice and frenzy-sparkling eyes. From the other side of the ship, from the prison compartment were brought back Team Lightyear, the Darkmatters and the other rangers. They had had nothing wrong over there, moreover they had been able to rest and sleep for a moment after the wearisome escape.

On Capital Planet, the detected attack of the attitude-equipped space biker was also thrown in the nearest swamp. The grumbling Torque soon flapped around in the firm arrest hold of two sturdy space rangers, a joyride towards PC-7 in sight. Madame President was able to exhale in easement; although she did not had even known being under some raid (so there had not been a change to nerve).

The dark rangers, who had been furthermore captives in a smaller ship somewhere among the court- and war-vessels of Lord Zenith, were also freed then to be arrested by the Universe Protection. However... their treatment had not been quite nice. Infuriated because those disobedient had dared to harass his Father like that, Buzz had incited the notorious Junttikulmalan boxer-bull twin brothers Mäntti ja Mötikkä to 'give treatment' to those. And so... hobbling, black trimmings encircling their eyes they thankfully dragged themselves into the care of Star Command. 

In the launch bay of Star Command HQ, was a large group waiting for the heroes to arrive. The rotund figure of 42 soon glided in the radar, telling that there those wayfarers of unknown distances were. On the tail of that flagship, were several other ones following it, filled with captives, other crew members and space rangers. Its engines loudly roaring, the rugged, old star cruiser found its spot on the deck. As the smoke of the jet accelerators had been sucked into the airshafts, the airlock of the hull opened, and a ramp was thrown out.

Commander Nebula was the first one running to meet the vessel's exit-users. Team Lightyear plodded wearily out like some beaten. Next came Zurg out, pushing a wheelchair where Buzz had been tied up. The Captain glowered around from under the black brows, his mouth taped shut Apparently he kept growling some less pleasant words, since the facial muscles around the mouth were squirming. Behind there, stomped away the Darkmatters, also looking fatigued.

"Uhh... I'm gonna sleep at least 48 hours in row", Choi yawned deep and took some support from the hand of her Master. Warp therefore knew he needed some medical treatment, although the first aid had helped quite a lot. "Well... my genie-in-the-bottle wish is that they'll arrange me a big plate of food and then some private chamber for us", he replied.

As Zurg had tapped onto the even floor with the wheel-chair, Zeb had approached him. "Craters! How did it all go? Double craters, is this _Buzz_?" the Commander turned his gaze at the man writhing in the arresting chair. 'Zenith' had furthermore his majestic imperial robes on, the initial buckle attached to the collars. "What the cooked triple craters has happened to your son? He's like some miniature you! I remember he had a cratery Zurgean violet cloak on when he was brought then from Planet Z with you, but this is getting a hundred times more ridiculous, what..." Aiming his stern regard towards Zurg, the gruff ranger wanted answers. But... Zora Lightyear's attention was drawn away from him. He had spotted a familiar, sweet figure among the spectators, and that it was running into this direction. Pushing Nebula away from his way, almost striking him down, the Emperor rushed in the middle deck.

"Quasars, my Smoopsiepoo! My Viola, my Harebell, my Iris, my..." the old man grapped Mariañ, who had bolted towards him, lifting her from her armpits at least two feet up. Before she had her minute to utter anything, her longing words were muffled under an ardent kiss. Actually, even if he seemed to be rather ludicrous with his love-story, his feelings were very fervent towards the young maiden. And Zurg, if who, was a fiery person. After he had finished well his kissing and made the girl's knees completely slack in power, he opened up the second bag he was carrying.

"Look, Smoopsiepoo, what I have done for you!" Zurg drew forth his collection of ready needle- and handiwork. "Look, here is a new, glorious valance for your kitchen window! You shall adore this one! Look, I made the model by myself!" enthusiastically the old man spread a complex crochet work in his hands. It was completely purple, decorated all over with small Z-letters that were either upside down, sideways or in the normal way. Putting the garment in the arms of the girl, who furthermore a bit dizzily swayed after that choking kiss, Zurg threw a dozen other pieces forth. "Look, here are some kettle-holders for you... and I made you a magnificent scarf, it has these enormously beautiful, large Z-letters decorating the both ends... and this is a knitted cap for you, you shall pay attention to the rarely sonorous vignette... and ahh, my personal favourite, a Z-shaped tapestry, I shall put this onto your living-room wall with my own hands!" The manic man kept loading new articles for Mariañ to carry, till the woman resembled a walking rack, covered with violet, and different-sized izzards.

What came to the expedition group remains on Isgurda, they were picked up by the Universe Protection Unit a bit later. All those dark rangers of course were in the ends of their careers, sentenced to spend the next years in prison. And Na-Vetta... he would possibly never be working in the science circles, any more.

However, let us still return to the come-back day. Buzz Lightyear was freed from his circus costume, and given some anaesthetics to calm down the struggling patient. Zurg's thermal bag indicated to be a first aid treasure. With the help of a supercomputer, the healing herb was analyzed in a few hours and a rarely efficient substance was found in it. A certain kind of vegetal hormone indicated to be the mysterious well of soundness. About its efficacy was truly no scientific evidence, yet, but there was not other change concerning Buzz but to give a try. A liquid boosted with normal tranquillizers was infused out of the plant, and that medicament then put to stream into his vessels. There were at least some instructions in _The Peregrinator's Journal_, how to produce that remedy. Otherwise preparing it would have possibly taken months. Then... it was only hoping, hoping, hoping...

Some hours, a good lunch and a bit rest later, was the turn for medical examination. Of course those that had had urgent problems, like Warp, had been nursed immediately. His handicap turned out to be worse than had been expected, but nothing that would require lifetime-staying in the hospital. The laser had struck right through his skin, charred a bit the ribs. He would get a skin implant, and some bio-plastic layers onto the bones. While waiting for the surgery, he could stay with his wife, in the med bay of Star Command.  

At the moment, the both Darkmatters were sitting in a waiting room, outside Mariañ Haydée's office. She had survived successfully from Zurg's crochet attack, and piled the purple wonders into a closet. Although she mainly was a surgeon, she also carried out normal physical examinations, at least when it was concerning something as important as the health of the Isgurda-travellers. Hence, the door of her room opened up, asking Choi to step in.

"Okay, Zarah... I'll give you a check, now. I heard that you had quite hard times on that planet", Mariañ's jovial voice asked.

"Sure, yeah... my husband got wounded, Mr. Lightyear almost got killed..." Choi sighed, meanwhile observing the surgery. White walls with green panels, those usual Star Command colours gave the peaceful atmosphere.

"My poor hun... ah, excuse me..." the younger woman gave a hasty giggle, "I wanted to know about your state. I heard that you have suffered from hypothermia."

"Oh, yes. But I dunno... I was sick for a few days and that it generally was..." Zarah winced from her thoughts, as an injection needle was stuck into her vessel. The compression bandage had been put around her arm for a while ago, already.

"Now... clench your hand into a fist a couple of times. I need to take also some haemoglobin samples..." Haydée arranged her instruments. Out of the blue a loud burst of laugh made her startle. Her patient stared at the one corner of the room, holding her stomach and tittering almost hysterically.

"W-what the h-heck is _that_?" Zarah howled, pointing at the hanging flower pot.

Normally there would have been nothing amusing in such an object, but this one, however, was quite peculiar. A violet, grinning helmet with red eye sockets was hanging upside down from the ceiling, a couple of lobelias growing from the mould inside it.

Mariañ gave a goofy smirk. "Isn't it lovely? That was my engagement gift I got from Zora."

Zarah furthermore horse-laughed, "You mean he gave you his Zurg-costume helmet? _To you?_  What a very romantic gift!"

"Well yeah, I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that junk, so I filled it with soil and planted some flowers into it."

"Krbmbff... Bha ha ha!" a nasal burst got Zarah's mouth to widen from ear to ear. Hardly ever something so ridiculous had been done with a 'tender affectionate present of love'.

Thus the topic changed to Zurg, what else. Like two scandalmongers, the girls rumoured everything between the underworld and the next galaxy.

"So how come that you fell in love with Emperor Zurg?"

"Ahem... actually, it was all pretty sudden... you know... I used to be his common nurse, too, because his treatment was a top-secret thing. So I was like hired to do some extra-job in the middle of my normal surgeon work. I brought him food, changed his bandages, and so on... like, well, a normal nurse. I don't know, what happened between us two..." Mariañ had a dreamy expression while she sorted the blood test tubes. "He kind of had attached his eyes on me... and, well, I..." a half-mousy expression on her face, she lowered her voice, "He's a real gallant. And looks so charismatically handsome... you should see those muscles he has, ahh, haba haba..." the young doctor would possibly have mixed up the gores with her coffee, if Zarah had not interrupted her.

"You're gonna drool those test tubes full, if you ain't gonna stop now. And... hehe... you didn't answer my question, just started to adore his biceps."

"Well guess what?" Haydée giggled, "he just one day completely surprised me. I was bringing him afternoon tea, he had almost healed up then, already. He just kind of... ahem... captured me in his arms, and with no asking put a ring onto my finger. I just can't describe what happened... but he just said he loved me and that he had decided that I would be _his_ from that on."

Choi's jaw clicked open, "You mean... he didn't even _propose to_ you? He just one day decides that..."  

Mariañ shook her head amused, "Yep. Didn't even propose to. Just gave me this ring and said that the wedding day would be determined later..."

"And you had had absolutely NOTHING romantic before that?"

"Nothing... well, if not counted that continuous eye-play... well what can you expect from that old, egoistic emperor?"

"And you just agreed? _Like that_?"

"Yeah, well..." the surgeon's eyes roamed daydreamingly.

"You're just impossible", Zarah burst to laughters, again. "Oh, well, who am I to scold here anything... at least yours is a human, not a bluish-pigmented half-robotic alien..."

After more sample-taking, testing and examining came the time when the time was over. 

"You can in come now, Mr. Darkmatter", Mariañ called the alien, who was sitting in the lobby with a comics magazine, outside the office.

"How was it? Everything's okay with her?" came the severe answer.

"Yes, they both do well", she waved her hand back, opening the door slightly.

Warp did not quite understand the response. "Both? Quasars, if ya have another patient there, I can't just bounce in!" he gave a laugh.

"Well that one is just so little that it shouldn't bother you, yet", she only gave a casual giggle, thinking that the male was joking.

"Wait, wait, what are ya meaning?" he stopped her ongoing with sharpness in his accent.

Raising her brows Mariañ threw in, "I thought... you knew."

"Knew what? Now what's this mysterious playing with secrets? Is my little Zarah okay or not?"

"Yes, yes, everything is very fine, only that she's carrying now a little one. I really thought you knew...?"

"WHAT...?" Warp was to drop his eyes. As the surgeon opened up the door, he stood in the same gaping position that this issue had left him to jut. Choi sat in the arm-chair, buttoning her jacket back. Her coy expression met Darkmatter's one, while he was slowly entering the room. Zarah had heard about her state only somewhat a five minutes ago, so it was noveau also for her. Mariañ actually thought this was a planned and known thing, since Zarah had not uttered anything when the doctor had made a notice about it. Well... there are times that a person can stay speechless.

Much nothing could be read in Warp's eyes, only evident trepidation and maybe some disbelief. And such things replied her face. Bashful perplexity with a tinge of determination under it.

Irritatingly Zurg's bride broke the tensed atmosphere by starting to babble about some scientific odds, "You know, it's quite interesting to see that the DNA of two different species matched that well. Mr. Darkmatter's race is amazingly similar to humans, only that the skin colour... uh, are you listening to me?" she tilted her head.

Warp took some steps towards his wife. She inadvertently cringed a little under that stare.

"You're... pregnant?" came a quiet question.

"I... I just heard about it. I... but I... want to have m-my..." she stuttered something back.

Warp did not even listen to her words, but just gawped, "You mean... you're carrying my flesh and blood inside you...? That there's this little creature..." sitting beside the woman, Darkmatter had given his guarantee about the happiness he felt inside him. And Zarah also understood it from his latest sentence. More messages were not needed to proclaim anything. The big alien took the red-hair into his embrace, giving a long, fiery kiss on her lips.

"According to the samples, the critical point was somewhere one month two weeks ago..." Mariañ kept spoiling the intimate atmosphere. However, this time her fine medical studies gained some attention, at least from Warp's side.

"One and half months ago? That was..." his tone got lower, "Quasars... that was the same night I carried you back from that wicked death lair... the one and only time during the travel that we..." Thinking of this suddenly brought some cold sweat on his forehead. It had been so close that Choi's existence would have stopped being that day... and that in all the randomness those frail moments had happened to be a beginning for a new soul.          

----------------------

Buzz Lightyear's days began to have a brighter dawn. By and by, step by step, the cold fingernails of the dark side did not abrade his soul any more. Like a black curtain would have been lifted up from in front of his eyes, he began to reminiscent, who he actually was and what was his purpose in this universe.

His friends -although he at first did not want to recognise them as his well-wishers- were spending quite a lot time in the hospital cabin he was closed in. Unfortunately the very first moments he was in the arms of the bed, he was tied up to it since the continuous fits of rage. But little by little it all began to transform. From under some concrete covers were dug out the soft-hearted space ranger who had once been the pride of the Alliance.

And he remembered. He recalled every single moment of those dark hours of Zenith's occurrence. As the healing went forwards, he resembled his reforming father who had some months ago gone through almost the same progress. Shame, regret, apathy, some depression... But the most important detail was that tha-grydda truly had efficacy. It was not just any vegetable among other weed, but a true, forceful healer. No wonder it was worth of protection, so that the hands of maliciousness would not terminate it.

"Blast..." Holding his both temples with the palms, Buzz very clearly announced his opinion. In white pyjamas he listened to his fathers scolds, sitting between the hospital bedsheets.

"The Commander is considering of taking your back to your work, as soon as he regards that your brains are back in position. You have not behaved well, son. You shall no more try to conquer the galaxy." Zurg sat at his bed, the arms folded over the chest.

"Craters, I guess it's a Lightyear legacy of some kind..." the younger man shook his head to the whole idea with a grin, "You, who have tried to take over the Alliance about... 5040 times, are giving me now reprimand?"

"Exactly 5045 and half times. You underestimate me", Zora corrected gravely, "My supreme memory will not fail, although I have failed all those 5045 and half times."

"Alright, alright. Craters, I got the point." Hugging his father, Buzz tuned his voice somewhat more severe, "Thanks for saving me, Dad. I try to be without turning to the dark side, any more."

A knock on the doorframe roused the men. A sarcastic voice interposed, "Ahh, the peaceful family unions! Hey, Izzard, your... ahem... _Smoopsiepoo_ waits for you in the lobby." Warp stood at the entrance, Zarah under his arm.

"Ahh, dandy..." Zurg smirked, "Now, Buzzy, remember to brush your teeth before going to sleep and eat all your vegetables on the dinner. And do not forget the daily stomach muscle exercises."

Thus the man disappeared in the corridor.

"Soo... the sick days start to be over, huh?" The blue alien shook the hand of the patient.

"Gradually... and hopingly I have to never return here... at least not under these circumstances." Lightyear responded.

"Ha ha! I guess it was after all quite a shock to find out who your daddy was!"

Buzz' expression turned solemn. "Unfortunately... Blast, I understand now that it partly caused this whole mess. My mind couldn't cope with it, and uhh... I just couldn't hold myself together any more. So... I guess I started to think that _I was some Zurg myself_." Staring firmly at Warp, he continued, "I mean... it resembles a bad joke. I had used to think that my father was a brave man, who fought evil and had died an honourable death... but that the most sinister thing ever in the whole galaxy indicates to be _him_... phew..."

"Hmm... didn't he once use that daddy-sonny-thingie as some kind of trick to unarm you?"

"Yes... on Roswell, once. But craters, I though it was only an evil scheme to beat me, and made me hate him even more. But that all in all, there was a truth basis on that..." Buzz sighed.

"But now you have washed the laundry in your brains and accept that this b-sci-fi cliché can happen in the real life, too!"

Lightyear's face got brighter, "Yes. And did you see, how he really cares for me! His words were so caring when he left the room! I finally have a real father!" Buzz resembled a little kid in his enthusiasm, until he recalled why he had called the Darkmatters to visit him.

"Oh, yeah... congratulations, Warp and you too, Zarah."

"Thanks. I guess this means we have to settle down a bit for a while. No hyperactive action adventures in a few months", Darkmatter smirked.   

**. . .**

 So continued the legend. One day, one day on the racetrack of time, Buzz Lightyear stood in front of his commanding officer, declaring out loud with a firm chest-tone, "Buzz Lightyear reporting for duty, Sir!" And the rest of Team Lightyear saluted too, standing beside their Captain, looking forward to step into new adventures.

**THE END**


End file.
